


butterbeer & polaroids

by poetjasmi (orphan_account)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Body Dysphoria, Eating Disorders, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Smut, Friends to Lovers, Growing Up, M/M, Slow Burn, Trans Lance (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-03-30 02:56:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13941090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/poetjasmi
Summary: Keith, young and bloodlust-full and in search of a family, finds himself at Hogwarts where he gets exactly what he needs: a friendship born of pseudo-adoption, a soulmate who discovered his secrets before he could begin to tell them, and the love of his life who knows how to cook a mean falafel.





	butterbeer & polaroids

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meet Keith: not magic-savvy and incredibly people-shy and loves McDonald's more than In-N-Out Burger because he has no class.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy belated birthday, Hailey. I'm sorry for the lateness, this was a hefty one and it comes with a part two. It's a thick fic. Sorry if this is boring and maybe poorly written? Whoops?? I was sick with the fever while writing the majority of this so...be gentle? Or mean, I don't know.
> 
> Gonna be honest and say that I love kids and I adore them and love writing about them. They are my go-to's when writing original fics so I thought, _hey, wait a diddly dang minute! Keith! Growing up?? I should write that!!!_. So I did. 
> 
> Notes you should acknowledge: Hunk is called Garrett because that's his first name and only people who call him Hunk are his close friends (because they recognize a babe when they see one. Plus, if just any ole body called Garrett Hunk, he'd probably lose his fucking mind and blush for a thousand years. Can't blame him). Lance is called Buchanan because that's his last name and Keith has no concept of calling pretty boys who he has a big horrible crush on by their first names for some fuckin reason.

#### ☾ YEAR ONE ☾

The letter is a little less than expected if Takashi's wonderment upon answering the back door on a sticky June night and seeing his very own owl perched on Keith's shoulder with a letter in his beak before sudden awe when he saw the stamp for Hogwarts, addressed not to him but to Keith, was anything to go by. If anything, he expected it less than Takashi, reading the letter aloud several times and begging to hear the answers to his questions such as "Do you think they made a mistake?"

It's hard, Keith knows, to get a question like that and not fumble noticeably when asked but he also cannot forgive the sudden wide-eyed look Takashi gives him and the prolonged silence that is accompanied by an open, gaping mouth and Takashi trying to situate them both on the back porch steps allowing them to both gaze into the humongous vegetable garden in their backyard. "Why would you ask that?" He seems vaguely angry, frustrated, and Keith _can_ forgive that because it is the middle of the night and Keith is prying a heart-to-heart from him.

He shrugs, nonchalant. The stars he's looking at tonight are so bright where they are at, illuminating every speck of grass and sand around them and each one has him drawn away from Takashi's yawns and the heavy hand he drops on Keith's shoulder to turn him back to the conversation he himself started. But he's digging his finger into the dirt at his feet, taking in the smell of dew already appearing on the grass and admires the scenic moonlight washed around him.

But, honestly, this is a serious question which demands a serious answer and he can't ignore it for long with Takashi dragging him back to reality by shaking him lightly, "I know you're not sleepy. You can answer my question, Keith. With words."

Not much comes up that compares to the shrug. Why would he ask that question? It's beyond him and he goes with the simplest answer in the book: "Because I think they made a mistake."

"Hogwarts doesn't make mistakes." Takashi wipes a hand over his face and gazes at the side of Keith's for a second that nearly has Keith flushing from the stare. "Plus, they know what potential you have and," he places a hand squarely on Keith's shoulder that is only meant to have him focus his attention on Takashi, "I know what potential you have. You'll be great. Just like everyone before you."

The conversation ends there, simple and clean. With too much reassurance that nearly has Keith rolling his eyes but he somehow doesn't. Takashi is always reassuring him.

Keith goes back into the house but not after giving the owl a small treat to send him on his way.

"Next month," Takashi says. His attention is directed towards the short list of items needed. "We'll head into Diagon Alley and get you all you need."

Diagon Alley is a source of anxiety for Keith and, though he's been socialized ever since Takashi's family found him in the middle of the desert feeding off of armadillo's blood, the occasional rotten deer and McDonald's happy meals he scammed from families who felt sorry for him (but didn't ever call the cops?), he's not accustomed to the bubbly hum of this life quite yet. The whole time they visit London, Takashi cackles at every failed preteen attempt of his brother's to speak up or make a friend in the typical fashion or even order food from Muggle establishments correctly (mom said there is no McDonald's at Hogwarts and though Keith thinks that's a load of shit considering it's a magical school that could conjure up anything yet they apparently don't have to skill nor loyalty to adjust according to their students' desires to simply fix up a single fast food establishment similar to the likes of McDonald's, he also likes that this is his opportunity to eat all the nuggets and fries he wants—Shiro tells him to slow down plenty of times because he's got money to spend on "more important things" and if Keith needs another 10 piece nugget meal, he'll have to pay for it himself but Keith could eat a million of these things and he does, using all of Takashi's money whether he likes it or not).

Keith regrets ever saying yes to the Hogwarts letter. He isn't sure how he's supposed to not live on the little Texas homestead where he'd manage to isolate himself for two years in the company of Takashi and the Shiroganes. It wasn't plush and had been rather scary at times, especially when he was first found, still heavily attached to his bloodlust and terrifyingly crusted in old blood from his own cuts and the wounds of animals he'd killed but it was home. He'd been rabid and hadn't spoken to anyone for more than ten minutes at a time ever in his life after he'd been abandoned so taming him took some weeks.

Luckily, the Shiroganes were generous. Sweetly nurturing the vampire-boy for more than a month before Keith bothered to come out of the guest bedroom, the only room available when he arrived, of his own accord and tried to speak. Sentences were difficult as his throat was dry, body weak, and mind made into mush from all the time he'd spent away from civilization.

But, somehow, mom had made it her mission to cuddle him as much as possible and bake him his favorite foods (nuggets and apple pie but that's because McDonald's was all he ate previous to being subdued) and read him his new favorite books. She was all the love he remembered his own biological mother to be somehow.

So when his mom saw the Hogwarts letter, she was more than thrilled.

His mom thought Hogwarts would be good for him though he already begs to differ (and, since he got his letter, he can tell Takashi kind of agrees with him but he never brings it up because he knows Takashi would feel guilty. He would go on about how much progress he's made in the 761 days he's known him where Keith has gone from being as irritable as a soaked cat to as irritable as an only slightly wet cat). She said over dinner one evening after dad had given his rendition of the Proud Dad™ who can't contain the literal word-vomit that she too was excited and revealed that, hopefully, this was Keith's chance to branch out, become somebody and make friends. He liked the sentiment but, with his temperament and the way even Takashi, the sweetest Hufflepuff to this day, sometimes treats him while he's relapsing makes him think he's going to have a hard time with that.

He stays positive, however. For the love of God, he wants a shot at being normal.

Her optimism chokes him up sometimes but, at age eleven, he can sometimes believe her. Even when it's fantastical.

So he braves Diagon Alley with the tenacity of a trooper as he picks out a wand, a 9 1/2 inch dragon heartstring and blackthorn. Takashi is more than excited to watch the peculiarity that is Keith trying everything from a long unicorn hair and elm wand ("Ha, long wands are usually for short people." "Shut up," he rebuttals because he has little to no ability to say anything smart back especially when he's kind of wrapped up in trying to figure out how the wand makes him feel and whether he has a nice grip on it. Long story short, he doesn't) to a medium apple and phoenix feather wand which did not like him and told him so. Loudly. By tossing itself out of his hand. After an hour or two of wands like these two and the light brotherly taunting from Takashi who sits in the corner of the shop while he messes up everything to a flexible birchwood and unicorn hair to an aspen and an 8 inch dragon heartstring, he thankfully found his blackthorn which, admittedly, felt warm to the touch and soothing in his hand like it had its own sunspot.

They merrily went to pick out an owl, Shiro making plenty of sense when he said Keith could get his mail from one. It didn't stop Keith from looking forlornly at the cats and wishing his stupid brother wasn't so reasonable and would stop dictating his life.

By the time they'd grabbed all the necessary course books, all the equipment, and stuffed their faces full of toffees and all the jelly beans they could fit in their mouths, it was sundown and about time to return to their hotel room for the next couple of days before they had to be shipped off to Hogwarts.

The makeshift hotel is just that, quickly done up and almost shady but Shiro walks into the room with the hotel manager right behind him as he checks for anything suspicious. The manager seems bored like she's done this before and is nowhere near as upset as Keith suspected she would be when Takashi first suggested it.

Takashi, though polite, is meticulous and does not leave a spot left unchecked. He's heard the horror stories of unclear rooms and would much rather his eleven-year-old brother not witness an unsightly used condom in a dirty wastebasket. So when they go to bed, it is in the cleanest, most heavily inspected beds yet. Keith can smell the fresh linens and, as he's supposed to sleep, counts the visible threads he sees in his blankets. He thinks if he can find the will to sleep, it will settle warmly in his stomach.

But, of course, it doesn't happen like that.

"Is mom going to come see us leave for Hogwarts?" He suspects he's thinking too deeply about this and he's half-sure Takashi is already asleep since it's one in the morning and Keith was supposed to kick this whole staying up late and sleeping in all day habit in the ass but he craves any bit of old normalcy he can find, any familiarity at all that can drown out the nervousness he's feeling. Takashi is awake and has been, apparently, for the past ten or so minutes just watching Keith stare out the window at their shoddy view of a London street alley where some old wizard across the way will poke his head out, yell at the screaming cats below his room and then shoot fire at them to make them shoo. Keith finds it amusing to watch along with the cats kneading each other and purring into each other's necks.

Takashi is leaning on his pillow with his shirt discarded (he gave it to Keith and it engulfed him to the point that Takashi was doubled over when Keith pouted. "I'm sending this to mom and I'm going to show Matt and it's _definitely_ going with my other nightstand pictures!") and rubbing his eyes wearily. "Mom can't make the flight over from San Antonio to London to watch us board a train."

Keith presses, "But it's my first time?"

Takashi gets up slowly but keeps talking, "Do you want to call her? She wouldn't mind talking to you if you need the extra pep talk." Keith shakes his head. Takashi approaches him where he is perched on the window seat and drawing pictures on the cold glass of knives and smiley faces and, immaturely and hesitantly, dicks. Takashi wipes the dicks away, smiling. "What's gonna cheer you up?"

Keith thinks the question over but it's useless. What would make him, Keith, happy? He can't say much.

"I think I need more blood in my system."

Takashi perks up at something so solvable. "I can definitely do that for you."

Truth be told, no matter how much you try to liberate a vampire from their old ways, even a half-mixed, it's hard. Nearly impossible. Especially after a case such as Keith's where he lived on nothing but blood for almost the entirety of his pre-pubescent phase.

Keith craves it but takes the ration that Takashi gives him slowly and sips in between large intervals of time, assuming like children his age tend to that if he drinks it slowly, his need for it will dissipate.

However, the blood both doesn't cure his homesickness nor is his desire for it abated.

He doesn't talk about being half-vampire to anyone namely because he knows the stigma already and he has no one to talk to in the first place. Dad, when he was home which was on the occasion, would dig out details from Keith but Shiro and mom were less than curious to hear about his exploits in the desert and the reason why he was all alone. Child vampires are hardly ever meant to be alone, dangerous as ever, and he thinks that might be why Dad was hungry for information. But he deleted the memories from his mind, buried it as deep as possible.

Until it was dug up again like a skeleton in a grave.  

The Sorting Hat made him anxious since he'd first received his letter of acceptance. It's apparent dedication to detail was more than petrifying. But, despite this, he stares the beast in the face and watches as the hat hardly lingering on anyone children for too long.

His name is called and he remains unwavered by the ghoulishly torn mouth as he focuses more on not tripping on his hand-me-down robes than the humbling fact that he is running into the other weary first years who shove him faster to the front. He sits on the stool and waits for the tattered, brown hat he expects to smell musty to be placed atop his head but instead, it is surprised to find it soft and thick for insulating the heat, smells clean, and bears a pleasant weight. He closes his eyes and allows the Legilimency to penetrate the deep dark of his mind.

_Something about you is curious._

Keith perks up at the obvious praise. The way the hat says it into his own thoughts is gentle, whispery reminding him lightly of the Shirogane's great-grandfather who somehow had the ability to have the grittiest yet willowiest voice that could manage to calm Keith into a slumber listening to World War II stories and wrapping him in the smell of grass and wind.

 _Your brother is a Hufflepuff. I thought it was a good place for him as he has a warm heart and is so lawfully good, it only made sense to place him there._ The hat is apparently fond of Takashi and figuratively glowing with pride at the good choice he made. _He'll make a fine adult when he leaves as he bears the typical Hufflepuff quality of being forgiving but is also exhibits unusually strong leadership though it seems that particular trait is inherently a Shirogane one to have._ The hat chuckles softly.

Keith likes how the hat drones on pridefully in his thoughts, but its voice grows less fond as it turns its attention on him.

 _Now you seem to be a different story._ Keith would laugh but he hears its voice chill, the ambiance between them becoming intimate but wholly unwanted as the hat begins to talk. _You have some secrets in your head, I see them_ all _right here. You don't talk about them much for fear of, of what? Of the possibility of not measuring up?_

Keith bristles. _I'd prefer if you didn't go exposing things you don't need._ He claws at the bottom of the stool where his hands are hidden, trying to gather composure privately.

 _Don't get snippy with me!_ The hat retorts, but begins an explanation. _It is my duty to look. To see all that makes you, you._ The two sit in an unsettling silence as Keith feels the hat crawl through his head. After a moment of this, the hat adds in a voice unlike the harshness he'd previously used as if reflecting on what just transcribed between them. _I rather admire the wildness you exhibit. The unfurled wit and passion though I assume it has something more to do with your lineage than anything else._

_You'll be something magnificent. Something...worthwhile._

_Don't squander this opportunity I grant you,_ The voice now stern. _Hogwarts will do you good._

"Gryffindor!"

#### ☾

Pidge Holt becomes his friend by accident, he's kind of sure of it. Maybe it's a pity kind of accident as Takashi is friends with her older brother, Matt, and Keith knows the chances of that being likely are 75% higher than any other possibility but he will take the pity party rather than being friendless and feeling distinctly like a freak amongst his own house. No other kid gets the urge to walk around the dormitory in the middle of the night and they oftentimes find him in one of the window seats in their room, half-asleep or writing letters he wouldn't send his parents. Even his owl, Puffball (named for the fluffy feathers that puff up after he shakes himself off from a rainstorm when delivering letters), actively hovers over him some days, waiting and waiting to be made useful but soon becomes bored of his owner and never brings him mail whatsoever. Pidge makes fun of none of this. In fact, she finds it borderline charming (though Keith would find it to be otherwise when they sit in the dining hall and her owl brings her trinkets galore, with toys he'd never imagine and snacks he couldn't fathom. She'd shrug and say, "My dad travels a lot" but there would also be this far off stare in her eyes when she said this as if she wished he wouldn't. But Keith was a young wizard [and a bad one at it, so far] so he wasn't any good at mind reading, even if he wanted to be).

However, the beginnings of their friendship were rocky.

"Do you remember how many horned slugs I put in the cauldron because, last time I counted, I put four in the cauldron," Keith asks, pouring over Pidge's textbook with all her sticky notes stuck precariously. Her scrawling is nothing but chicken scratch but a month sitting next to her has allowed Keith to learn exactly how each shape matches up with each letter and he's proud of that feat like he's crossed one hoop in the obstacle course to becoming friends with Pidge.

She sits opposite him at the potions table in a cozy emerald green sweater that looked suspiciously colored. When first brought up as to where she bought it, she shrugged and said, "My parents were really proud that I got into Slytherin and mailed it to me." With that came shorts and tie-dye slippers to complete the whole sleepwear outfit and Keith had smiled for the first time since she'd met him (she poked him in the cheek, "Is that a smile? Looks kinda weird on your face." He immediately frowned again) and complimented the set. Pidge shrugged it off, almost sending him an ugly glare and he knew _then_ that he wasn't supposed to say anything.

But even now, he likes that he gave that compliment despite the stutter he'd had at the time because the pink of her cheeks against those rounded glasses was something else.

"I think you should consider starting over if you can't remember how much you put in there because slip-ups like that aren't going to look good on the test," she says.

Their professor so graciously granted them the chance to practice the one and only potion Keith couldn't make which happened to be the easiest. _Well,_ easiest _technically_ but hardly the easiest for Keith. When it came to mixing the potions and collecting the ingredients, he needed rhythm and reason and the more complex “higher level potions” weren’t hard to master whatsoever; they just made sense whereas this one was oversimplified, the instructions repeated so often that it became soupy and confusing in his head.

As he pours it out, he snarks, "It was the first one we learned. How am I supposed to remember all of these ingredients?"

Pidge checks under her nails for some dirt. "I don't see how you _don't_ remember. It's a beginner's potion that anyone should be able to complete with their eyes closed." She seems unbothered and Keith is frustrated already, overwhelmed with how a month into this Hogwarts business he has built a reputation for being the worst at everything along with being an anti-socialite.

Coupled with the putrid stench of the whitish, grainy half-produced potion going down the drain and the sense of failure he feels, his eyes begin to tear up. He has the forethought to remove his gloves before wiping his eyes but that only alerts Pidge that there is something wrong. Thankfully, she says nothing as he catches his bearings, takes a deep breath and remembers that this isn't the end-all, be-all. He paces between the tables while scrunching his eyes up, saying to himself, "Okay, okay, okay, _okay, it's okay,_ " and it is as he finds himself right back behind the table with only the energy to do this one more time.

"Okay," Keith's voice cracks but puts back on his gloves and avoids eye contact with Pidge. "Time to do this right."

It ends up smelling foul again, the potions just a little on the side of incorrect but their teacher tells them politely that the lab is closed and, besides, "The test isn't for another two weeks. I promise you'll be fine," and awards both them both with a visit to the classroom's side chamber for a calming glass of milk and a walk to their dorms. The walk was awkward but nothing was more awkward than the pitying look Pidge bestowed Keith that night and, when he was sitting on his windowsill reading the history of this and the mysteries of that, he couldn't help but shut his book in shame at the incessant, ugly thoughts that clouded his head.

Shame that would follow him for days on end everytime he found himself in the vicinity of Pidge.

"Why do you look so guilty?" Takashi asked him one breakfast as he himself read through the news and chewing on some blueberries he somehow scavenged. Keith sure couldn't find any and he stuck to his cinnamon oatmeal.

He looked up, tipping the spoon until the runny oats fell from the silverware and he sighed heavily. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Takashi nudged him. "You can't keep a secret from me. Come on, tell me."

Truth be told, keeping a secret from Takashi was like breathing air: thoughtless and infinitely easier than anything else. Telling him things meant explaining himself, meant coming up with answers to questions like "Why do you do that?" How should Keith know why he does anything? For the longest time, he'd lived with nothing but instinct in the middle of the Texas desert with no one to share secrets with except the animals that creep at night and the fantastic moon that sought its way into the night sky.

So, in Keith's mind, telling Takashi the truth is a second thought. Maybe a third thought, even. At times, not even a thought as Keith is more concerned nowadays with Pidge not stabbing him with his own wand right in his puny little chest.

"Nothing."

Takashi rolls his eyes. "Yeah, it's not nothing that you're constantly looking at Pidge like she's the devil's helper, herself." Keith takes a deep inhale at that. Maybe telling the truth should have been the first thought. " _Yeah,_ we all noticed that," he pops a berry in his mouth, rolls it on his tongue as he follows up with a "Whatever you did, she's probably not even angry. She's been more concerned than anything else."

Shoveling the rest of his oatmeal in his mouth so he doesn't have to speak, Keith nods as Takashi eyes him. "I know you wouldn't talk to me but make sure you talk to her, okay?" Another nod, a sign from Takashi.

As much as Keith doesn't like being found out, he doesn't like people mad at him and he sure doesn't like Takashi mad at him (though, if he asked Takashi now, he knows reasonably, Takashi would say he isn't mad. He's _disappointed_ which is somehow worse and would break his little heart more than is called for but Keith can't go bury himself under some hot, searing sand or allow himself to be bitten by a water moccasin and feverishly face something akin to death or maybe even death itself if his stupid vampire body would just _let him die for once in his miserable life_ —he has to face every ounce of this humiliating feeling) so he ensures that he arrives to class early and finding his seat and he grabs the Muggle pens his mother bought him because Takashi begged in that Staples before they were sent away, stating that "Quills? are stupid and archaic and gel pens are forever, mom. Well, not forever because the ink doesn't last that long but, mom, Keith's handwriting needs some serious work and if you want to see him adapt better, you have to make it worthwhile. And he likes colorful things, I promise! He looks at my gel pens all the time."

Keith did like them. They wrote smoothly, didn't smear and they helped him confidently write a letter of thanks to Pidge. The same, if not worse, type of chicken scratch writing Pidge had spelled out, "Thank you for helping me last night. I never got the chance to say thanks."

Pidge finds the note on her desk and nods in Keith's direction, a quirked up mouth. "I know you don't talk a lot but you didn't have to waste your paper just to say that." Keith shrugged.

Of course, it takes them several visits after dinner to master the cure for boils but it was worth it to see the accomplished smile on Pidge's face. "One day, with enough practice, you'll probably make a great potions master because you're so determined," she says while cleaning up their station after their assessment ended well.

"I'm not as good as you so what does it matter?" he wipes down the counter and begins reading the teacher's notes on the assessment sheet. Something about his safety procedures being on par and everything but his stirring technique is perfect. For that, he got less than a perfect score where Holt received the highest mark in the class.

She frowns, "It was one test. You're good at potions."

He shrugs and considers it.

Considers it for a while.

And comes to rest on the conclusion that that's the nicest thing she's said to him since they've met.

For a good while, they don't have much to say until it's time for flight class, a few weeks after officially coming to Hogwarts and the first-years have honestly caught their bearings and, truth be told, flying class is Keith's favorite class for many reasons aside from his natural ability to navigate the air quickly and command a broom, even the most temperamental one offered from time to time, with the ease of a seasoned rider. On the broom, he feels lifted, in a metaphorical sense, of all his problems. The weight of perfection slips off his shoulders and he is free to ride through the autumn air.

He assumes it's hard to mess up something so simple because adjusting mistakes is easy with some quick thinking but he watches Pidge slip from the end of her broomstick as she tries to hop onto it and he laughs kindly as their roles are reversed. She is a diligent student in their potions class but, here she is, struggling to find balance. She huffs and adjusts her glasses on her face. "Keith, get down here and show me how this works," she says teasingly, smiling even as she cannot find good footing.

He's amazed by the ease with which she handles her own inexperience, so far from his own meltdown and hangups but Takashi will tell him later that he too has a tendency to burst into tears when he desperately wants something to work (and he commends Keith on being so mature about his emotions, giving in when necessary, and calming down without an outburst like he sometimes will not do). She laughs through her own mistakes and pouts and, yes, sniffles at times because frustration did that to people but she manages to make a joke despite her feet staying firmly planted on the ground and her eyes are as bright as ever which was, well, different.

He would help but it's fun in the air where he is safely tethered to his broom due only to willpower. The wind on the back of his neck sends shivers down his spine. It's good where he is and he enjoys watching Pidge having fun all on her own, especially when she bounces off the ground and floats a little where she is before finding herself back down in the dirt.

She squeals, delighted, "Did you see that!"

Keith nods, more enraptured with her own progress than and more thrilled to see _her_ fly.

"Do it again," the teacher says to her with no ounce enthusiasm in her voice and both Pidge and Keith's faces fall.

Pidge mouths, "She's no fun," and then sighs before yelling up at him, "Help me fly!"

He cocks his head. "How are you going to learn, then?"

She pretends to think about it, tapping her fingers against her lips. "I wouldn't because you'll help me every time."

He laughs good-heartedly and falls for her persuasion, flying down to the ground and settling next to her broom after looking at her broom neighbor so that they moved right out of his way. He hops off his broom, setting his down delicately next to Pidge and he begins to show her exactly how to hold the broom. "You're really good at this, Keith."

"I guess?" he says, distracted by a splint in the wood of the broom and lends his to her. They switch and, already, she sees the difference when her feet leave the ground with ease and she flies circles around him, laughing.

"See! You are so much better at this. I wouldn't have noticed that."

She sets her feet back down and presents the broom to him with a grin while he shrugs. "It's nothing."

Of course, Pidge doesn't think it's nothing when Matt and Takashi talk the teachers and, eventually, the headmaster into allowing them to go to Hogsmeade and there, while sipping on the infamous butterbeer with the Holts and his brother in the back of a silent shop the two first years were dragged over to, Pidge raves on and on about Keith's spectacular talents. Takashi nudges him, smiling into the straw offered with his drink. "I would have never guessed my little brother was so good. He never tells me anything." Keith rolls his eyes.

Matt is a bit more excited for all of them. "You should consider the Quidditch team. I know you're a first year and you can't exactly try out this year but next year, oh boy, I'll be sure to get you on your team. I'll have a good, strong talking to with those Gryffindor kids." He catches himself in his rush of excitement and offers Keith a sure smile when he sees the way he dives into the frothy foam of his drink, "If that's something you want, of course. It would take lots of practice but I'm a pretty good beater and, by the sound of it, you'd be a good chaser, especially if you bulk up like old Shiro here," he points at Takashi with a clear smirk on his face. "Could'a used him as a keeper and his _whole chest_ would'a protected those goal posts but n _ooo._ He can't stay on a broomstick."

Takashi huffs into his drink. "The team would get my chest and then Hufflepuff would lose every single game if I was the keeper and I don't want that to be the reason I can't sleep at night. An ordinary potted plant could score against me." Keith can't help but snort into his poppy seed muffin and nod but stops short when Takashi glares at him. "Don't agree with me, Mr. Can't-Mix-a-Potion."

Keith rolls his eyes, "What's in the past is in the past."

"Anyway," Pidge interjects, staring pointedly at her brother who beams with no shame back and Takashi has enough shame on his face for as many as five Matts, " _I_ was saying I'm proud of you, Keith. Even if you can't mix the most basic of potions properly without doing it a hundred times prior or can hardly write a history paper and need lots of help doing research. I'm proud of you despite!" she says with a tip of her glass and a glint in her eyes.

Matt gives him a stare. "Are you taking advantage of my baby sis?" When Keith sits there with a gaping mouth, Matt laughs, "I'm just playin'. Pidge, stop being an asshole," and he downs the rest of his butterbeer and lets out a delightfully polite belch (much to Takashi's dismay), pounding his chest with his fists, and says, "I know Keith has done plenty for you. Be gentle with him."

Keith piggybacks off of Matt, "Yeah, be gentle with me," but his brother laughs at him which effectively makes his request ineffective and Pidge commences teasing him out of the Hog's Head and until they find themselves out in the crunchy snow, Pidge collecting up snow until it's a worthy shape and she had sent it hurling at Keith's shoulder. "Ow, that hurts!"

Pidge shrugs.

"Hit her back!" Matt yells but Keith shakes his head. Too much work and, already, they find somewhere to sit, the two of them while Matt starts up a snowball fight with a reluctant Takashi who, at first, looks his friend over like he's incredulous that they would even consider the game. But Matt says, "Bet I could build a better snow fort than you," and they're off to the races, in the middle of the small town, wetting their clothes with all their fighting while Keith and Pidge watch in silence, something Keith thinks he rather likes about Pidge.

The silence she gives him is unsolicited and fulfilling, not widening a gap between the two of them but building the bridge that Keith's been setting pavement down for the entirety of their half-year together and here they were, sitting thigh to thigh, shoulder to shoulder, in a light quiet that felt cozy in some way.

"Y'all can join in whenever," Takashi offers but Pidge shakes her head for the both of them, laughing when Matt hits him square in the chest and he cheers loudly, saying how _that's_ how Takashi would be a great keeper. "Oh, so you mean to say that your aim is so shitty that you didn't mean to hit me but you did?"

Matt sputters, "Keith, is he always like this?"

"What, taking words out of your mouth?" He gives Takashi a once-over. "Yes."

Pidge laughs at Takashi's look of betrayal met by a snowball in the face and it's as charming as the twinkle in her eye.

#### ☾

When Takashi graduates, the whole Shirogane clan arrives at Hogwarts for an extended stay with the whole of the school along with other seventh year parents and grandparents, proud to see their child finally, officially, aging out of this system and entering an entirely different world away from magic castles and endless buffets and mean teachers and the childish threat of being left under the whooping, weeping willow. And, yes, the whole family was proud.

All with the exception of Keith.

He was proud...and bitter. If there was one thing Takashi had never promised him, it was the promise that he'd always be right there by Keith's side, ready to hold his hand throughout the wholeness of Keith's life out of Texas but, boy, did he want Takashi to. Walking down the aisles in the dining hall with his robes freshly ironed and his shoes nicely polished, Takashi looked somehow a thousand miles away already. Too far for Keith to reach out and grab and, he had said he'd be fine with this but this? wasn't what he signed up for.

He distracts himself with his goblet of sparkling grape juice and tries to feel an inkling of happiness. What is he if he is only bitter? Especially when Takashi settles himself with the rest of his class in the front of the school with the brightest smile on his face and mom is leaning every which a way to get the best view of Takashi before leaning back to say to dad, "I'm so proud of him. I know he was worried but look at him now."

Keith takes another sip with a blank stare on his face.

Later, Takashi will come to him, robes pulled off and his tie all askew as he asks Keith's opinion on the whole ordeal like a good big brother. And Keith will shrug but think of the very distinct point when he most felt like bursting into tears in that dining hall which was when the headmaster presented Takashi's diploma of completion and excellence and Keith knew his fate was sealed for. The headmaster would announce that Takashi Shirogane was not only masterful in herbology and defense against the dark arts but top of his class in the latter (the defense teacher standing taller, preening, as she gifts his brother with a beautiful pin on his collar, marking his masterfulness, he supposes) and he'll be carrying on his learning at some far off school Keith has heard too much about since moving in with the Shiroganes. The pressure in his head would not be alleviated until he'd had a pint of blood and, even then, it wouldn't absolve the aching pain he felt when mom eventually sobbed on Takashi's shoulder and kept muttering, "You're going to be even _further_ away," like it helped anyone to remember.

Like a good brother, Takashi would pat the seat next to him while Keith zoned out at this moment and say none-to-concisely that he was scared. Keith would look at him funny, the calming tang of blood on his teeth as he would have taken a drink before sitting down with Takashi. "What do you have to be scared of?"

Takashi will shrug, smile, and say with no ounce of regret, "It'll be my first time in a year or so that I'll be far away from you. I don't want to go."

Keith will think, _Don't go then_ , but he knows that's selfish and he's been working so hard on not being selfish, on being normal and being a normal half boy, a half vampire is hard at all times but especially on the subject of selflessness and gratefulness. Keith's never had too much of either.

But he figures he could try now and ends that conversation by saying, "Then write often and visit all the time."

They shake on that.

#### ☾ YEAR TWO ☾

They go back to Texas and they end up taking the Holts who have only ever been to London and Australia for the whole of their life and it's spectacular the faces Pidge makes once she makes the comparison between the monstrosities that live near her house and the ones Keith has encountered for all his life. They see snakes often while they are whizzing through mom's garden on their broomsticks and, while practicing spells they shouldn't, they encounter the wondrous magic of watching an egg literally boil in the desert sand and the moon's immense chill when they spend a night under the stars with a bonfire churning out s'mores nearby. Pidge does not mince words when she says it is like she never left home and yet so alien compared to home.

They lie in Keith's bed while Matt and Takashi prepare for Takashi's graduation trip, the two boys making such a ruckus while Pidge curls into herself while staring out the window at the passing clouds. Keith figures that they actually aren't packing but, rather, throwing things around the room in a terrible attempt to get clothes into bags as quickly as possible. "Do you think they knew how to pack a suitcase?" Pidge asks sleepily and Keith shrugs. "Matt's bag should still be packed. We literally got here yesterday," she laughs. Keith doesn't correct her that it's been a week and Keith's bags tend to go into disarray the moment he arrives somewhere because he poorly packs bathroom necessities at the bottom of his clothes and must dig and toss jeans onto the floor in search for a toothbrush. But he keeps this to himself as he looks over at Pidge's neatly done bag.

"Some people aren't like you, Pidge."

She yawns, "Like what?"

"All neat and tidy. Especially Matt." They hear a bang and Matt's telltale snort before laughter is erupted into.

She smiles, falling asleep but not before Takashi loudly enters Keith's room begging they play Quidditch just one more time before he leaves even though it's ten in the evening and mom will surely be upset when she sees that the two little ones are out of bed. "You scared I'm going to beat you, Keith?"

Keith yawns into his palms and shakes Pidge awake. "They want to play a game real quick. Think you're up for it?"

They end up pulling on sneakers and running outside with gloves on, balls at the ready and assigning roles to one another. "You'll _finally_ be keeper, Shiro!" Matt exclaims and Takashi shrugs because there isn't much to protect except a lonely soccer goal which will easily tear under the heavy weight of quaffle and bludger. But it's all fun and games, nothing too serious as Keith scores point after point and Matt comes at him strong from across the field just obliterating Pidge in her small, little soccer goal. "Take that!"

"Matt, please, don't yell so loud. I'll get a headache."

He sheepishly smiles and whispers with the same amount of enthusiasm, "Take that!" and Pidge erupts in laughter because her brother is so sincere and understanding and, after thirty minutes of playing this lame makeshift Quidditch game with no golden snitch and no seekers and Matt only winning because Shiro's whole abdomen takes up half the goal, they call it a night and settle for flying over to a local park for one last night of stargazing.

Though Pidge has gotten used to riding a broomstick pretty well, she has begun insisting that while she is visiting, she be treated like nothing but a princess and be seated on the back of Keith's stick and flown wherever they decided to spend their day at. So she discards hers and hops onto the ebony black wood, design as sleek and flawless as Keith's flying which he gradually learned to manage since being taught the basics. Matt and Takashi, naturally, taught him amateur tricks and the standard expert tips that could only come from flying for nearly a decade like the two of them. She thinks he's the safest of the three boys and she's likely incorrect as Keith is a thrill seeker, loop-d-looping through the air and getting as close as he can possibly bear to a passing lake and touching the twinkling waters but he's always apologizing for giving in to his own instincts and he thinks she probably likes riding with him for the sorrys.

She holds him close, utterly clutching the lapels of his soft, leather jacket. "Don't touch the water this time. My socks will get soaked," she complains but he doesn't guide the group near the lake and, instead, edges towards the road which is the quickest way to get to the park.

"Why don't we go this way?" Takashi frowns at Keith who has yet to set his feet down on the ground, instead circling the slide like a lurking shark. "Keith! You know that's dangerous!" Which isn't a false assessment because Keith has limited control over the broom, even if he's quite the expert with his maneuvers but, even so, the broomstick is new and can't move in tight spaces.

But Keith sighs regardless and almost glares at Takashi when he touches down on the gravel, feeling how Pidge's fingers touch his chest in a futile attempt to adjust to the height adjustment. Her head was resting in the crook of his neck which he liked for the simple fact that the blood rushing through her face was warm against his skin and he feels immediately chilled when she gets up and off to run towards the empty swings.

For a moment, he savors whatever heat is left but he catches the pressure of Takashi's smirk behind him and he blushes, putting his broomstick away. While Pidge sits out of earshot, Takashi teases, "Do you like her?"

This has been going on for the whole week that the Holts have been visiting. Constant pestering from both Matt and Takashi over whether or not Keith harbors some secret admiration for Pidge that could most definitely be referred to as a _crush_ but he has no such infatuation, he thinks. The tendrils of a blush are more related to laughing so much at Pidge's hilarious jokes and the smiles he gives especially to her are nothing but those resigned for a best friend. When he hugs her before going to bed, it's because, despite her size, she is room as a furnace against his icy skin and he tells her he loves her sometimes because why wouldn't he? Mom always told him to be clear with his feelings, give what he can, lay himself flat for those he cares about, and tell others when they are so unbelievably beautiful and forgiving of his mistakes.

So, no, he doesn't have a crush. Deep infatuating adoration, maybe? She had held his hand all week that she's been visiting, while dad says something about going to aquarium and she grabbed his hand and cheered and then didn't let go until she had dragged him upstairs into his room to jump up and down, while they were shopping at the seafood market for something freshly caught and with the eyeballs intact, while he read books really hard books she recommended to him and she got bored at listening to him murmur the words to himself. Pidge was the touchiest person he knew which wasn't saying much because no one ever touched him but she was all hugs and climbing into his bed at night so they could share the warmth that Keith definitely did not have and confessing secrets like, "I think your neighbor is really cute?" She says it like a question, unsure, pressed so close to Keith's side that she might as well be absorbed into his side like some reverse angler-fish mating.

"Who? Marcus?" Keith only has a handful of neighbors and they live miles off from the homestead. Keith has never really talked to his neighbors nor played with them nor _wanted_ to, Takashi being all he's ever needed in a sibling compared to the loneliness that was the desert for the majority of his life, but he'll catch glimpses of kids on dirt bikes and skateboards and broomsticks in graphic tees that make zero sense and staring at him while he exhibits every trait any child his age doesn't have: stoicism, a grim frown, and heavy gray bags under his eyes that can only be appeased by the sip of some blood.

"Not Marcus. Sara. She's really pretty."

Something cracks in Keith's chest. Maybe it's his heart, and maybe it's his heavy resolve that, _no,_ Pidge doesn't like me and _never ever_ will _like me_ or it's simply his brain breaking in half and then trying but failing to piece itself back together because hold the fuck up, Sara is a girl?

"Is? Are-? Sara?" he supplies to this conversation weakly.

"Yes."

They fall into a deep, overarching silence that almost makes Keith believe that Pidge is sleeping right on his chest with her hair coming down in waves onto his chest but then she whispers over to him, "You haven't shared a secret."

He thinks for a while. He could tell her plenty of things like how he didn't like twinkies very much but Takashi did so he always gave Takashi his share of the cheap pastry, but never in front of mom, because then mom would stop packing them and his brother wouldn't get extra (he was sweet like that) and how he had terrible nightmares about his parents coming back to get him, devouring the Shirogane family until there was nothing left of them, until they were all heaps of bloodless sacks and he'd be forced to return to that sand kingdom, skinny again, growing smaller as his bones shrunk. He could tell her how he doesn't like to wear shirts sometimes. They make his skin itchy like he could peel it off of himself bit by bit until he was nothing but a skeleton.

He could tell her all these things and so much more. Like how he doesn't sleep very well at night and how, sometimes, he just craves a rabbit for dinner but one he's caught fresh with his bare hands or the plethora ofreasons why he likes McDonald's so much (it was the one place the employees couldn't ask too many questions about a little boy dried to the bone with dirt covering every bit of skin he had and splats of blood all over him. The most they could do was ask if he had any parents, ask him if he wanted them to call anyone, and then give him some water when he said no to both those questions and wanted to take a nap in their indoor play gym. At some point, that particular McDonald's knew better than to say too much of him, his name, his address, his family; too many questions meant a blank, deathly stare and, quite frankly, McDonald's doesn't pay these teenagers enough to deal with the animosity).

He keeps it simple. "I drink blood sometimes."

"Joking or serious?" Pidge says, voice clogged with sleepiness.

"Serious."

"For needs or, like, ah! I pricked my finger and I'm gonna lick it?"

His eyebrows raise. "For needs."

"Cool."

"Cool?"

"Cool."

And that's the end of secrets time and the most serene reaction to his vampiric needs he's going to get for a long time, he already knows that.

Which makes Pidge a keeper.

So, yeah, Matt and Takashi try to draw from him all his deepest feelings but he gladly and honestly tells them that Pidge is a friend. A really good friend whom he loves very much with all his heart. "That doesn't mean you don't like her. If anything, that proves that you like her."

"No," he tells them but even then, Takashi is still standing at the broom rack giving him this look like he knows something, like the ride here is some indicator that Keith is ready to share his undying love with Pidge (which he has done but less obvious and more like, "Hey, I don't like this coffee cake. Do you want the rest of it?" and Pidge's bottom lip had quivered and Matt had said, "Oh, no, now that's a marriage proposal") but, really, he's nowhere near close to something like that. If anything, he's annoyed and he's tired and he's sweaty because Quidditch does that to a boy when you're facing off with one of Hogwarts' finest single-handedly.

He takes a seat next to Pidge and he avoids any glance casts in his direction from Matt and Takashi, the two always _always_ trying to rouse a reaction out of him when he wanted to enjoy the simple company of his friend on a pale, dewy midnight before his brother was due to leave sometime tomorrow morning with every one of his belongings packed tightly into a bag.

Pidge points at the sky, "That looks like a rabbit."

He tilts his head. He was never good at making things from the stars. They only ever looked like, well, stars in the sky and he thought the beauty was not of creating something larger from them but seeing the finite burn of their light peering through the twilight of Earth's night was enough for him.

"I see a carrot for your rabbit," Matt says. "R _ii_ ght there," he adds, pointing near the rabbit's mouth which is merely a cluster of stars in Keith's mind.

But Pidge laughs, says, "Yes! I see it!" and then the kids lapse into silence again. Swinging back and forth on their swings, taking in the gentle night's breeze and loving the sound of a lone coyote howling in the night, Keith is refreshed by this return to his home. The middle of the sand, the deep moonlight that alights the jungle gym equipment eerily and peacefully and washes over everyone's pale skin. Pidge interrupts the silence in favor of yelling, "Look! I think that's Venus!"

A bright orb shines in the evening, oh so beautiful and hanging there as still as the stars that surround it.

"Yeah, that's Venus, kiddo," Matt gives her and Keith dares to look over at Pidge who is swinging back and forth, the creak of her swing so loud and consistent, and she leans back when the swing goes forward. She looks at what's ahead of her, straight up in the sky, blazing beautifully beyond this earth and he can't say that he doesn't want to immortalize this moment for what it is: perfectly right.

#### ☾

Before Keith goes off to Hogwarts for the second time in his life, Takashi made the promise to come back and make that trip with him despite himself having started a new life elsewhere and he does come back, freshly shaven after taking a long flight from South Africa where the best school for herbology presides. They had given him the whole tour, he says. There are flowers for days, amazing creatures that move with each breath you take and smile and others dance. Some even talk, like nothing Takashi has ever seen before and, before his career at this new school is over, he's making sure Keith spends one break with him so he can see the magnificence that is this brand new school.

In the meanwhile, Takashi guides him through the London streets for the second time in his life but this time Takashi is much more carefree, smiling oh-so-much and doesn't laugh when Keith wears his sweatshirt to bed. "You're starting to fill it out more," he actually says, knocking his fingers against Keith's chin. "You been lifting or something while I was away?"

"Uh, no," Keith says shyly and allows himself the fun of seeing that he, in fact, is not swallowed by the sweatshirt but it _is_ growing taller.

"Well, I know for a fact that those clothes are not the same ones you had in your dresser before I left."

Keith shuffles his feet together and presses his toes into the bedspread. "Dad took me out shopping. Said my clothes were getting too small and he didn't want me to take too many of your hand-me-downs."

Takashi slaps him on the shoulder. He looks so proud and happy that Keith cannot resist asking if something changed in the time that he was away at the school. "Is it really that great?"

His brother smiles in a manner that probably hurts his cheeks: so big and with zero restraint like his face could split open on that smile, his skin filleted by his beautiful teeth and the sparkle in his eyes. "I met someone," he says like that's it. That's all he has to say in order for Keith to get it but Keith doesn't get it _but_ he leaves it at that.

Takashi met someone which means he gets to act as weird as he wants to, Keith supposes.

At least his brother didn't completely leave him.

#### ☾

When he returns to Hogwarts, it's on the train with Matt and Pidge. They are already dressed in Hufflepuff and Slytherin garments whereas Keith is being quite uncouth, still dressed in his streetwear with his robes sitting in his lap as he is roped into listening to every story Matt can remember from traveling with Takashi all over the place. "You know, your brother is something else. He hails a cab in New York like he wasn't about to be fought by every type of businessman in the city and he gets in, right? He's got on his pajamas—well, we both do because it's a pajama party and we were representing—and he's holding a corgi and he's _set_ on getting us to where we need to go on time though I would like to mention that I did tell him we were already thirty minutes late." Matt is red in the face with this story and laughing as he tells the story with Pidge laughing as well. "He's flipping off this one guy who's mad as hell that we got in the car, with a dog no less, and I never even knew Shiro had that much gumpshun in his life.

Well, we get in the taxi and it's driving us all through New York City in the middle of the night and it's hot and stuffy but it's especially hot and stuffy with the world's fluffiest dog in the car and he's moving around between our laps, barking, and the taxi driver is probably super mad but we can't understand a single word of what he's saying because he's not speaking English, probably cussing at us in like Russian or something, he looked really Russian. Anyway, that's all this to say that we get to the party _covered in dog hair_ and the dog still doesn't have a leash and he's squirming in Shiro's arms so much that Shiro just—" Matt mimics Shiro picking up an object and wrapping it around his neck, "—just puts that dog around his neck and carries him up to Jessie's apartment building like that. In the ugliest plaid pajama pants, I've ever seen and a batman button-up like it's a regular day. "

He stops to laugh and says, "God, I love your brother," while Pidge is howling out laughter, practically crying, and Keith is no less amused because, yeah, Takashi can be funny and have guts but usually the guy is shy and fairly reserved.

Matt continues, "Yeah, so we get into the apartment building and Jessie is practically sobbing because why would we bring this dog here? Oh yeah, because Jessie has never seen a corgi before but that's probably for good reason because it turns out that Jessie is slightly allergic and is sneezing all over the place while we grace her with this great birthday gift and she said she'll keep him even if he does make her sneeze a lot when he kisses her. It was cute."

"What a turn of events," Pidge grins before laughing again. "You guys are bigger idiots than I thought."

"Yeah, we are."

Keith is grinning so much he nearly regrets excusing himself from his seat to put on his robes but he must as they lost themselves in stories of Matt's world travels with Takashi and the serious trouble they were constantly finding themselves in as two magical boys. The glass door opens and shuts with a satisfying suction sound, releasing and then joining together, that muffles the Holt's conversation.

Their cabin sits in the communal wagons where all the houses congregate and Keith decides that he likes this better than being separated with Gryffindor-only. He likes them, funnily enough, hasn't made friends with too many of the people living in his dorms. They think he's strange or that he's impossibly difficult to talk to (probably because he never talks to them) and he's always hanging out with Pidge, attached hip-to-hip to Gryffindor's biggest rival.

So when he slides into the bathrooms, pristine and white, he is met by boys of every house sitting around trying to tie their ties together and some adjusting their hair with a little bit of spit, a little bit of gel, and a little too much hope. He gets in a stall, dresses down, then dresses back up with finesse, managing to leave his hair tidy. He clasps the watch his brother gave him before leaving him at the train station (it's a nice slap-bracelet watch he picked up from the clothing department store. Keith had joked that Takashi didn't want to buy him a nice memento to which Takashi had run in, found a red slap-on with a simple sleek face that he knew Keith would appreciate) and leaves the stall to ensure that he looks correct.

But not before running directly into a boy who begins ardently apologizing, "I'm so sorry! Oh my gosh! Are you okay?" and Keith is thinking, _What the heck? I ran into him?_ But it doesn't seem to matter as the guy gives himself over to apologizing and saying sorry for being in the way and taking up so much space and, no doubt, he's hurt Keith somehow? "Are you hurt? You bounced back on that stall—"

Keith holds up a hand as suave as he can to a stranger and says, "I'm fine. Thank you."

The boy looks like he's sweating up a storm, probably on the verge of actually crying with the way his face scrunched up. He's picking at his unraveled tie around his neck. "I didn't mean to stand in front of your stall."

"Consider it forgotten," Keith tries to alleviate but he's trapped by the sincerity in this boy's voice.

"No, really! You're saying it's fine and it's not!"

At this point, Keith would love to start backing away into his stall slowly, shutting the door, and then opening it again to find that none of this is happening right now and he can freely leave the bathroom to return to Pidge and them freely but, naturally, he's trapped in this awkward situation in which a boy, clearly a nervous first year, is telling him adamantly that he cannot accept his earnest apology.

He remembers being this frightened as a first year that even puny little second years like himself would have scared him. All the magic surrounding Hogwarts was daunting, the kids were bigger, the realization that you weren't going home was sinking in right about now. Friends are hard to make, especially if you're a nobody like Keith and you have no clue how to make friends and your brother is probably the only other person you knew under the age 35 all your life until being moved halfway across the world.

Taking this into consideration, Keith skips the formalities and leaves his hand out for this kid to shake it, "I'm Keith. And you are?"

"Garrett. It's nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you, Garrett. Do you need help with your tie?" He sees Garrett's hands fiddling with the fabric and, yeah, this was something Takashi had painstakingly taught him the duration of their ride to Hogwarts last year and he probably only had twenty minutes to really teach Garrett a life skill he could carry with him for always before probably tying it for him anyway but he'd be damned if he saw another kid sitting in the bathroom, crying up a storm over Keith or, worse, _his tie_ when Keith was perfectly good at it.

However, Garrett gives him a weary look. "My friend is really good at tying it, she'll do it."

"But are _you_ good at tying it?" Garrett shakes his head. "Then I can teach you."

Garrett is hesitant but Keith is pushing past him to get to the marble countertops where he makes loose his tie and looks in the mirrors, expectantly back at Garrett until he sighs and stands at the ready for a lesson and Keith is a patient teacher to this poor boy who has tears in his eyes and his fingers shake as he knots the tie around his neck for the fifth time before hazardously untying it again because it "wasn't perfect" and "Lance would say something." Keith didn't know who Lance was but he was starting to think he had a mean streak of making fun of a guy who couldn't tie his tie if Garrett was all up in knots about it.

Finally, they got it without Garrett blubbering over it and muttering how much he wanted to change the direction the knot was going in or how it poked it because "it pokes out too much right there!" Keith couldn't care less.

"Thank you!"

"No problem," Keith supplies before walking out with Garrett who took up most the width of the doorframe, smiling with his red cheeks and seeming. Keith felt a surge of happiness when they both parted ways, this kid to the first years' wagon and him back to his friends who would ask him what took him so long in the bathroom.

"Get lost in the toilet?" Pidge jokes but, really, she does look concerned.

"No," and that's all he says.

Of course he sees that Garrett kid again when the first years' houses are being decided once and for all by the hat that spent so much time insulting Keith last year (he looks upon that memory with spite, wondering what the world that hat hated about Keith so much that he could spend so long tearing him to shred in front of the whole school). The kid is called up by a different name but Garrett is still in the name and his tie is being adjusted as Garrett looks up at the stool with a bit of fright before sitting down almost daintily upon it, the hat placed atop his head no second later.

The conversation between Garrett and the hat is a short one, with Garrett muttering back and forth with the thing for a few moments before the hat yells out, "Gryffindor!" and Keith's table erupts in applause and cheers Garrett clampers over to sit anywhere that there is an open seat and away from the limelight.

Keith tunes everything out from that point forward in favor of moving closer to Garrett to give him congratulations. "And your tie looked great up there. I hope you like Hogwarts."

Garrett gives him a tiny smile and Keith takes that as a victory.

#### ☾

Despite practicing with Matt every day of his miserable life, Keith finds that getting on the Quidditch team is harder than he anticipated. Namely, the Gryffindor recruiters are asshats and he eventually gets on the team but not without a bit of hazing that includes coming to a single practice without eating breakfast (it is only one practice because the upperclassmen feel bad for making him come to a practice so drained. Little do they know he slipped some blood into his water bottle and chowed down on that) and being woken in the middle of the night by spiteful fifth years who end up telling him stories about the team and secrets he ought to know about the captain, they suppose.

Still, he loves his team even if they did kind of traumatize him and, he wishes he could only play Quidditch every moment he's awake. He'll sit in his windowsill fantasizing about moves he could make, maneuvers that would wow the captain so that she moves him to primary chaser rather than having him run drills on seeking and along with his usual chaser drills.

He can't complain, however. Between going to bed sore every night and increasing his caloric intake everyday to hearing Pidge constantly making fun of the multitude of bruises on his pale, pale skin before running over to the nurse to get him an ice packet ("How do you even have bruises if you don't have that much blood in you? It's _weird_."

"I have the normal amount of blood in me, I'm pretty sure."

"Are you sure?"

Keith lulls, "Pretty sure?"

" _Weird._ ") and hearing Matt talk nonstop about how excited he is to beat Keith in his first game against Hufflepuff, Keith cannot say he's mad about the turn of events. In fact, he's more in love with flying than he ever was before.

#### ☾

Puffball brings Keith an unexpected letter while Matt is munching loudly on some crackers in between classes and they await Pidge to come from god knows what class. The owl screeches, dropping the letter in his hand, and he walks to his history class with Pidge at his side and Matt saying, "Open it!" at his side while he moves the card over and over, looking for a name or any indicator that it belongs to anyone he knows.

Luckily, he finally does open it. Peels the wax off until the envelope is torn open and he begins to read:

_Dear Keith,_

_I miss you. That's all I really had to say but mom said I was doing you a disservice by not writing you so, here I am, gel pen in hand and doodling in the middle of class because I can't think of anything to say right now other than I miss you and wish I was still at Hogwarts so I could have seen you get on the Quidditch team and snuck you into Hogsmeade so we could get a victory drink._

_School is fine though I doubt you want to hear about it over here. It's boring though all the plants continue to be amazing. It's like another planet! The people are nice, the plants are out of this world and I love studying in this city. I know mom would hate to hear me say this but I'd love to live here for the rest of my life._

_Love you and write me back by the end of your class (You're in history, right?). I want to hear about your day,_

_Takashi._

Keith smiles in the middle of history class.

He loves Takashi's letters.

#### ☾

Keith's first Quidditch match is against Ravenclaw house, in the midst of winter with the snow falling fresh on the ground and into the side quarters where Keith is hyping himself up with Pidge and Matt giving him a pep talk. Matt is ridiculous, gesticulating so much that Keith would be laughing if he wasn't absolutely terrified of the snow and it's cold and the fact that he could definitely slide of his broomstick if it sticks on the wood and he could lose this whole game for Gryffindor if the Lord so chooses.

He was so nervous this morning that he skipped out on his morning dose of slick rabbit's blood and decided that, hey, flying on an empty stomach will surely make him a better player if anything. So he took the opportunity to sit at the breakfast table, decked in his uniform and getting too many pats on the back from expectant house members who wanted to quote-unquote, "See him slaughter from Ravenclaw ass." He nodded, smiled, and then, quite frankly, panicked because he was _nervous_ and it was _snowing_ and he hates the snow.

"What's there to be afraid of? You've been in the snow before, Keith!"

"Yeah, but never during a game. Not even a skirmish." The captain, from the great, warm country of Brazil, never liked snow anyway. She had them practice in it but there was often slipping and laughing and it would turn into a game to see who could stay on their broomstick long enough while the temperatures reached below 0 degrees Celsius, something Keith despises about coming to Hogwarts. The homestead in the winter was a soft heat that penetrated through the walls and caused Keith to curl up with Takashi, sure, while they opened presents because his feet were cold and Takashi was like a radiator, so warm and cozy, but never _ever_ did it snow.

Pidge rolls her eyes. "Do you need gloves? I can go get your gloves," she says while pointing out that Keith's hands are bare as ever right before his first game and maybe that's the source of his whining but also it's _fucking snowing_ and Keith is on the verge of puking.

"Don't bother," Matt says, distractedly surveying the other Quidditch players and then checking his watch. "You've got, like, ten minutes and I'm going to go to my locker and get my gloves. I'll be right back." Matt sprints out of the room, presumably to wherever Hufflepuff's locker rooms are.

Which leaves Pidge giving him the most pitiful look ever. "It's just snow."

"It's _just_ snow," he mimics. "I hate snow."

"We play in the snow all the time! You make snowmen in the snow and you drag me out of my quarters when the first snow falls." Keith starts stretching so he can somewhat act like he doesn't care much for what she's saying. His lips purse and he's undoubtedly annoyed—partially because Pidge keeps calling him out but also because his hands are so cold—but she keeps talking anyway. "A little snow shouldn't throw you off your game. You're going to be great out there. Kick some Ravenclaw behind and be the best chaser ever," she smiles and offers Keith some water before he's destined to leave the safety of this side room for the field. The water tastes too cold for his taste buds as he prefers lukewarm water or even hot water going down his throat than this chilled, crispiness. But he scarfs it down and thinks, _Yeah, I've got this._

"Okay, yeah."

The flap to the room opens again, allowing the cold to seep in. He's bundled in all his gear with an additional scarf on top of that with a hat to cover his long hair but still manages to shiver as Matt runs in, pink in the cheeks and covered in ice. "Here ya go, buddy." Offered to him are finger-less gloves, black and sleek. "Nicco had an extra pair so I figured you could use 'em and keep 'em if you really hate the snow so much," Matt smiles.

Finger by finger, Keith puts the gloves on and they certainly are toasty and have the ability to grip the hell out of his broomstick for the duration of the match. "They are keeper gloves but really lightweight so I figured you could use 'em too."

Keith nods, looks up, and smiles. "Thanks, Matt. This really means a lot to me."

With that, the captain calls the game and politely kicks Matt and Pidge out with the grimmest face ever. "You're going to do great, Keith. You're gonna kill it! Well, not actually kill it but you get what I mean," Matt calls out which is enough to make Keith smile before walking out to the field, less nervous than he was when he woke up this morning and flying a quick circle around the field. Surveying it for what it was and finding himself face-to-face with the opposing team, he found the butterflies in his stomach and ripped each of their wings off and played the dirtiest game he knew how.

All in all, despite his dilemma and the major fact that the snow was weighing heavily on his cloak while he chased and he dodged and he scored, Keith played an amazing first game that resulted in an almost tie only broken by his last score before the snitch was caught by the sixth-year seeker on his team. He was proud of his team and prouder still when they landed on the ground, brushed off whatever amount of snow they could and were greeted with harmonious cheers and all-around happiness from his house.

"That was excellent, Keith. The way you caught that quaffle was great."

"You've got an amazing arm on you. How do you not already have pecs yet with arms like that?"

"You'd make a great seeker. Your speed is phenomenal." This is said with a kind of hush-hush secrecy because trying out for seeker was really never heard of. The position was passed down from older to younger as older players were pushed into the adult-world by graduation and it was quite taboo to talk about a younger player taking the position so soon. Regardless, people talked.

But the only people he wanted to here talk were Pidge and Matt who came rushing into the locker-room (Pidge with a hint of disgust. Everyone was, after all, naked or half-dressed but Matt was eager and used to the smell of blood and sweat sticking to stinking skin).

They approach him with identical bright smiles but no words coming out of their mouths so Keith takes it upon himself to start the conversation. "So, uh, what did you think?"

And, like that, the floodgates are opened. They start at the same time:

"You did so good—"

"I don't think you've ever flown like that before—"

Keith laughs and shakes his head. "Thanks, guys."

They keep talking as he peels off his uniform, and he starts to hand back the gloves but Matt adamantly says no. "Keep them. You'll probably need them again because, ya know, the season continues through winter," and Keith accepts it graciously with a promise to buy that Nicco guy an extra pair if that's necessary. "Not at all necessary. That's an old pair, anyway."

They find a bench to sit on as Keith undresses and starts to get in the shower because plays are important and Matt is really on a high horse. He's going on and on about the fundamentals of a dirty game, how Quidditch players absolutely cannot be expected to play too clean of a game and the referee was being too much of a stickler this game for some reason.

Keith laughs and steps inside the stream of water as it heats up, throwing his towel over the curtain. He turns the temperature to extremely hot. If there is anything he loves more after being in the cold, it's the endless steam that floats above his head after he's released all the adrenaline his body can handle and he's dead on his feet. His skin smells like warming ice before he starts rubbing in the soap that leaves him fresh and clean.

But his hands turn to lead, the flush in his skin doesn't disappear and the heat of the shower is almost making him woozy enough to grab the shower tiles. His breathing is heavy enough to be audible and he doesn't understand how he got to this point so quickly. He was just fine before he felt like he was going in and out, his vision spotty and his limbs too heavy.

"Keith?" Matt calls through the curtain. "You alright, buddy?"

No, he's not but he's trying not to worry Matt too much as he shuffles into a sitting position.

"Keith?"

Yet, he's falling and his eyes close to a backdrop of blackness though he never touches the ground, caught in the arms of someone.

He'll wake up in the nurse's office, disorientated and surrounded by none other than his teammates, Pidge, Matt, and probably most of Gryffindor house who have brought him everything there is to eat ever as the news got around that his fainting was due to a lack of calories in his system. He'll shy away from the love, the shouts of "Oh my god, he's awake," and the many, many hugs he receives from everyone he knows and then some.

Pidge will lean into his side and say, "Don't ever skip out on your dosage, you idiot," as affectionately as she can while Matt is giving him the widest-eyed look ever and an expression that reads, "We have got to talk later."

But, for now, he's thanking everyone who's come to give him their condolences and given him all the candy they could spare to give him. Even a nervous little Garrett comes up and offers him a protein powder shake he says he made himself. "Uh, I hope you get better," he says before rushing off with two other friends downed in Ravenclaw and Slytherin gear and Keith thinks that yeah, this could have ended better but at least he knows he made a big enough impact on that kid.

When everyone finally leaves the room, having had their fill of Keith in his bedridden state which gets boring quickly, Matt begins a speech like none other. "I would just like to say that I have _never_ been more frightened for a friend and I would like to say that you should never _ever_ put me in that situation ever again where I have to carry your lifeless body out of the shower again unless you are literally dead because it was terrifying and I cried so _much,_ I thought you had died." He takes a deep breath before setting in again. "I would also like to note that you should never ever _, ever_ skip out on your blood meals—Yeah, I know all about that, thanks to Pidge telling me about that," Matt tells him after seeing Keith's eyes bug out of his head comically. "I don't know if you thought it was uncool to take care of yourself but, so help me, don't make me endure that again. We love you so don't put me in that situation again, Keith Shirogane or I _swear to god."_

"Also, I'm telling your brother," Pidge adds.

"Uh," Keith helpfully says after that whole long breathless spiel that leaves Matt's chest heaving. "Could you not do that?"

"No, someone has to tell him. I know you don't want me to tell your mom or dad and I would rather not listen to that howler and save you the embarrassment but someone needs to know that you aren't taking care of yourself," Matt says fervently.

"I wasn't doing it on purpose. I was nervous."

Pidge frowns. "Don't care. Someone needs to know."

Keith grumbles yet he feels so much warmth inside. Something akin to appreciation settles in his stomach and, though he's mightily aggravated, he has enough forethought to say, "Thank you," after a moment of deep consideration. "I wouldn't do it again."

Before every game, now, Matt and Pidge sit with him to make sure he's got everything he needs in him.

"Blood?"

"Check."

"Oatmeal?"

"Check."

"Protein shake?"

Keith interjects, "I don't drink protein shakes?"

Matt hands him a small bottle, strawberry milk flavored. "Now you do. Check."

He wouldn't have it any other way.

#### ☾ YEAR THREE ☾

Takashi suggests they come visit his school for the duration of summer break, namely because Takashi doesn't actually have a summer break but has to work on some kind of summer thesis where he has been entrusted to some kind of strange plant just created in the lab and still attend an advanced potions class that Takashi reports back is a hell like no other. "The teacher is rude, the notes are excruciating to read, and yall just don't know how happy I am to see some southern faces," he says when he greets them, in a big huff because of a pop quiz he had to endure.

Dad swallows him in a ridiculously long bear hug the moment he sees Takashi which has Keith and mom awkwardly standing to the side in similar excitement to explain how much they've missed him themselves. But Dad is showering Takashi with kisses and nearly in tears to the point that mom pushes him out the way and gets her fill of Takashi while she can.

Finally, it falls upon Keith to grant Takashi his happiness once Dad has gone in for a second fill, telling his son exactly how much he missed him ("You've been gone for _so_ long and you're so far away. Do you know how far away you are?"

"No, dad," Takashi laughs into his father's sweaty neck.

"You are miles and miles away. A whole ocean away. Further than you were when you went to Hogwarts and I cannot begin to tell you how happy I am to see you after a whole year." It was true, it had been a whole calendar year without an appearance from him. They didn't get long enough winter breaks and Takashi was busy anyway, working on exams and writing papers, that he couldn't come home for even a moment.

"I wasn't that far away."

"Point _is_ I missed you. My little Takashi." By this point, mom is really trying to peel dad off of Takashi so Keith can finally get a hug in.)

Takashi takes a good look at him before picking him up in a big hug. "You've gotten so tall!"

Keith laughs into the hug because, gosh, he has really missed this about his brother. Back and forth letters are only sufficient in knowing the minute details he decides to share with you but not in telling you exactly how much he's grown or the small scars he's developed into his skin or the bigger and brighter his smile has gotten while he's been away and he's been away for _awhile,_ something letters can never convey. Time may pass between each parchment but they can never tell you what that time means.

Eventually, Takashi sets him down, leaning slightly when he sets Keith down but doesn't let go. He's sighing into the embrace and whispering into Keith's hair, "I've missed you."

"I missed you too."

Takashi pulls back to reach into his satchel pulled tight across his chest. "I have a letter I wrote you," he says as he searches through it, finally pulling out a notebook full of letters galore of so many different colors, some with Matt's name on it, some with mom's handwriting etched into the paper, so _many_ with dad's name on it, all yellowing with slight age already. "Here."

It reads:

_Keith,_

_You'll be here soon. Dad will probably hug me for too long and probably cry and we'll have to suck it up and let him have his moment._

_I think tonight we should sneak out. Go to the beach so I can show you all the wonderful parts of this town, especially the magical parts, of course. The people here are beautiful and they work me to the point of exhaustion but they are so amazing. You'll love Cape Town._

_Takashi._

True to his word, they do end up sneaking out to see the beach. Keith is dressed in jeans and sneakers so there is zero chance that he will let Takashi push him into the water because Keith is the stickler for keeping his clothes dry. But Takashi sees water and rips his shoes off, throws his socks hazardously in the sand and runs for water. "I haven't seen the beach in forever. I've been cooped up at a desk for eternity," he yells from his spot at the shore where he digs his toes one by one into the soft, melting sand.

"Come on, Keith. Join me."

He wouldn't but he'll admire Takashi standing in that long sweater of his with the waves frothing at his feet, no doubt the reason why Takashi is shivering, and that big grin on his face is softer than Keith is ever seen. His brother screeches when the water comes rushing in too fast, soaking the bottom of his jeans, but he'll laugh anyway as if this happens all the time and he's used to it. Keith thinks, _He probably is. This is his home now._ Takashi certainly looks at home in this moment here.

"Walk with me?" Takashi asks with his feet still in the sand and his cheeks pinked.

They walk the line of the coast while they catch up. General things like _how was Christmas_ ("Same old. Mom was really sad you couldn't make it. I was happy the eggnog lasted in the refrigerator for more than a day"), _have you made any new friends?_ ("There's this one guy I really like." Keith gives Takashi a face. Takashi had never had the pleasure of coming out because, well, he never brought anyone home for his parents to meet. Asexuality, Keith found out, was probably the only thing dad could find any fault in Takashi over. But, what dad didn't understand was that Takashi wasn't _blind._ He simply wasn't all that interested. Ever. So this was news. "He's tall and attractive and he's my partner on this project—"

"I'm happy for you."

Takashi stops walking, surprised by Keith's outburst and Keith has to turn around once he notices his brother has stopped. With a ruddiness not from the cold but more from embarrassment, it appears, Takashi replies shyly, "Thank you. I didn't want to tell mom and dad yet."

"Well, why not?"

"They don't get it. They want me to be all action but I'm not. I'm calculated and I want to make sure he's not some prick or anything. I take time."

Keith nods. These are all things he knows. "Okay."

"Yeah?" They lapse into silence), _do_ you _have a crush on anyone?_ (Keith frowns, "Absolutely not.") and the gist.

Eventually, they find themselves on a bench looking out at the ocean.

"Are you going to be coming home with us?" Keith asks hopefully. He doesn't know how much he can take of mom and dad wistfully wandering around the house, reminding themselves of where Takashi would sit if he were here, what he would want for dinner if he were only home, what he would want to do today should he come through the door right now. It was grating on his nerves and one of the only reasons he couldn't wait to see Takashi this summer with his parents because then they'd maybe shut up about him if they got their fill.

But Takashi shakes his head. "I've got this project and it's intense." He surveys Keith's face. "Why?"

Sand is hitting Keith's face intensely as the wind picks up so when he goes to lick his lips before saying, "Nothing," he tastes the salt and sea life on his tongue.

"It's not nothing."

Takashi read him like a book these days.

Keith takes a deep breath. "Not to sound ungrateful and I love you and miss you and everything in between but mom and dad are so unbearable. They never reacted like that when I came home." He looks at his feet in shame.

"So this is a jealousy thing?"

He mulls that over and scores for the answer in his head. Honestly is it? When they met him at the train station, dad had done the typical dad thing and teared up because, "You've gotten so big!" and gave him the biggest, wettest kiss on his cheek while mom smiled and got the whole thing captured on her polaroid but it was nothing like what Takashi got which might as well have been fireworks and a whole freaking parade.

Keith wouldn't have asked for more, however. His parents knew to keep touching to a minimum (he hated bare skin on his and it made him uncomfortable to be hugged for too long) and they didn't take too many pictures (he never smiled right).

It wasn't envy. That was the wrong word for it, frankly. He liked what he got, he wasn't greedy. He was _thankful_ they acknowledged him at all.

He just couldn't understand how Takashi put up the amount of love they showered him in. If anything, Takashi was given ten times as much affection and touching as Keith and he couldn't understand how he handled it all with such even strides, pulling them in for more hugs when they looked like they needed them and spattering their faces with kisses and taking _so many pictures._

"No? I'm curious. Don't you get annoyed?"

Takashi's face changed from concerned and almost fearful to surprised again, eyebrows shot up and the laugh lines around his eyes pulled tight until he was guffawing. "With what?"

"With everything. They are all over you; doesn't it annoy you?"

"Never," Takashi laughs. "We're affectionate. Doesn't it annoy _you_ when you don't get a kiss?"

Keith shakes his head. "I know they love me because they say so."

Takashi hums. "Makes sense." Keith knows it doesn't make sense by the way Takashi shrugs and picks at his jacket but he lets it go in favor of walking back down the coast, his brother dancing in the water until Keith pulls off his own shoes to really get a taste of that south Atlantic ocean.

#### ☾

Everything is different since Matt graduated so the train ride is silent between Pidge and Keith, considering that they did all the catching up they good prior to the train and Keith really wasn't a talker anyway, nor was Pidge. So they gaze out the window with awkward glances over at one another. Of course, other passengers walk in throughout the train ride to say hello and rekindle old friendship flames but all with Pidge. At the end, they will send a sideways look to Keith and say hi, you might not know me but...and start from there.

Keith doesn't think he minds it very much. He's never been fairly close to his house and he wouldn't consider himself a savant when it comes to charisma. So he joins in on conversations when asked to and he waves at people as they pass by in packs of friends.

They go their separate ways at the school, sitting at different tables as the houses do but he is constantly looking for Pidge, where she might be amongst the sea of Slytherin. He finds her and he knows that she knows he's looking but she wouldn't turn around which is fine, it's cool, it's nothing he hasn't endured before and wouldn't endure again.

But he feels left out somehow. Forgotten. Discarded.

The atmosphere doesn't change for the two of them as school goes on. They talk again, just as they had before with the same tempo and intensity, but it feels tense and forced. Like Pidge's heart isn't in it.

_Maybe this wasn't meant to last._

Keith resigns himself to eventual loneliness. Pidge has plenty of friends, handfuls of them whom she can call when necessary, whereas Keith has acquaintances and maybe Pidge is starting to see that Keith is clingy, is a burden somehow.

He leaves her be for awhile. Doesn't push it. Takes whatever he can get when she's around.

That's all before his birthday comes up, however.

Keith never willingly celebrates his birthday and, since Takashi left, he didn't expect much of a celebration.

The actual date of his birth was a mystery along with the mystery of his parents and how he even ended up in the desert in the first place. He didn't know where he came from or when he came from it, he just knew he existed and could guess the number of years he'd been around based on the winters he'd endured, frigid and always in need of sitting in front of the McDonald's asking for a spare blanket from any passersby.

The whole tradition of celebrating was foreign to Keith. Streamers, balloons, cake, presents for the hell of it? He'd found them obnoxious and ostentatious if anything and would politely say thanks but never look forward to the days when mom took out her camcorder and captured his less than awestruck face at everything she had assembled for him. In those moments on the video, he felt the most ungrateful.

They had given him what they thought he deserved.

They had taken him in.

They had given him a birthday.

Takashi was obsessed with astrology when they first took Keith in, to the point that he was well known for it around Hogwarts at the time. He could recite all the signs and all their traits and accurately guess someone's birthday based on how they acted (since about Takashi's sixth year, he gave up on it, however. He calls it a pseudoscience now but can never get rid of his star chart poster that hangs in his dormitory now). So when they asked Keith when his birthday was and he didn't have a proper answer, Takashi took it upon himself to score over his notebooks and many astrology books and every copy of Cosmopolitan he could find to reveal that Keith _must_ be a late October baby for reasons.

"It just feels right," he said.

Admittedly, it did feel right. October was warm in Texas and Keith could wear shorts while running through the massive garden while Takashi tried to tag him before they were called in for pepperoni pizza and a handmade cake dad slaved away over. Presents could be opened on the porch. Little things like books and Transformers toys and teddy bears that Keith would open after stumbling through a card written by Takashi or his parents that read something sweet and heartfelt that would manage to make Keith feel incompetent as well as loved.

When he went to Hogwarts, Takashi made a point of taking him into town just to buy him a little cake with a candle in it and gave him a card that, when opened, revealed small, soundless fireworks and Keith's eyes had lit up. First time he publicly went to give Takashi a hug was that moment. He sought out his brother's warm embrace and could have nearly cried if it weren't for the fact that he wanted that cake in his mouth pronto.

Last year and this year were a return to the old days. If his parents hadn't sent him presents, he would have forgotten what day it is.

"What's that for?" Pidge asks quietly over her grapefruit while Keith peels apart a small box wrapped in shimmery paper. In it is small trinkets, things Keith makes a point of pointing out when they go to the supermarket.

"It's a present."

Pidge snorts, "Is it your birthday or something?"

At that moment, Keith blushes. "Uh, yeah. It is," he says in a low voice.

Pidge's eyes go wide. " _Huh?_ It's your birthday and I _didn't know?_ "

"Um—"

"But, waitwait," she says fervently, "Why didn't I know? Aren't we, like, best friends?"

"....Yes?"

"And I don't know about your birthday?" Her spoon clatters on her plate and Keith kinda doesn't know why she has a spoon for a grapefruit she could easily peel with her hands like an orange but she had called him an animal for suggesting that. "I'm the worst best friend ever, oh my god."

She wasn't. She was being absolutely dramatic and he told her so but, no, she dragged him out of his seat and said, "We have to do something. It's mandatory."

True to her word, they planned him a surprise party. Obviously not a traditional surprise party because he was the one planning the whole shebang with her but she had no clue what kind of cake he preferred, who he would even want at the party, what kinds of gifts he preferred or anything of the sort. He laughed at her franticness but it's enduring, he thinks.

As they set the cake down in the middle of the Gryffindor common area, he breaks their silence that they've been working on for the past hour, putting up streamers and the like. With the smell of chocolate up to his nose and them facing each other as they carefully place it on the table, he can't help but babble a little. "Why are you doing all this?"

She looks bewildered, eyebrows furrowed as she removes her glasses to wipe away perspiration. "What do you mean?"

"I didn't think you cared." He flops down into a slouching chair behind him. "I don't even care that much about my birthday. You're putting a lot of work into it."

She shrugs, "I like birthday parties a lot and you celebrate mine so it isn't in good practice not to celebrate yours, y'know?"

"Yeah."

When people begin to arrive especially for his birthday with small gifts they had purchased at Hogsmeade and with foods they swiped from the dining hall, he didn't know everyone but, surely, everyone knew him. They didn't know he didn't like hugs and they didn't know he didn't like kisses and they didn't know he didn't understand complicated handshakes but they each came up to him with their own agenda, softly congratulating him on turning another year older ("Fourteen, huh?" he heard all night), and he took each of his guests in full stride, smiling with them and joking when they brought up his games.

It was a good party. Awkward at times when he couldn't produce names and people reminded him they knew him from this incident or they sat near each other during lunch oftentimes but Pidge was by his side to remind him that he was no charisma expert and it's okay to be unsure of yourself.

By midnight, all the cake is eaten and most everyone is either talking quietly to someone or going to bed as Pidge and him clean up the scene of the party.

"Thanks," he says across the room. Pidge is stuffing a trash bag in the trash can.

She waves him off, "It's nothing."

"No, no. I mean, thank you for the party but also—" He hesitates and feels like an open wound, so bare and maybe on the verge of tears with brimming emotions. "Thanks for being a friend."

Pidge nods while she pulls her cloak around her neck, ready to depart, and she says with finality, "I love you, man. Don't forget that."

He suspects that he had forgotten that and, before he can apologize, she's left. But he thinks she knows.

#### ☾

In potions class, they get a new addition halfway through the year: this second year Ravenclaw student who decided it was best to take a seat in the back of the class— one because there were no more seats upfront but two because he seemed shy anyway, with some of the older students cooing at his rounded baby cheeks and his long hair that framed a delicate brown face. He was quiet with the other students, never actually bothered to tell them his name so they went around addressing him as "The Little One" as if he wasn't taller than most of the guys. He was lively in class with the teacher though. Always answering questions about where to find potions and the history surrounding them. He was a good student, Keith realized, and he was slightly jealous of the edge the kid had so it took both Pidge and him by surprise when the teacher asked them if they could possibly study with him.

"He's having a bit of trouble with this unit. I suspect it has something to do with him missing our first lesson so if you could show him around the lab and how to handle some of the harder potions, I could reward you with something worthwhile."

Pidge took that offer without a second glance, ecstatic. When Keith asks what she even wants as a reward, she shrugs and says, "I don't know but it's nice to have something to hold over people's head."

"Sometimes I forget you are truly terrifying."

She smirks, "Don't forget it."

"I wouldn't," he says as they walk down the crowded hallway to where they finally separate to go to different classes: herbology for him and ancient literature for her. This was the part he never liked because he'd have to walk down the halls by himself but also be bombarded by other students with homework questions or his Quidditch mates asking him about plays and tricks. He felt put on the spot but he would have to do it anyway as he said farewell and picked up his speed.

Only to be stopped by Garrett.

"Hey! I haven't seen you around in awhile."

"Yeah," he says. Garrett must have hit a growth spurt since he last saw him. He was ridiculously tall with fine black hair sprouting from his head in waves and his voice carried a richer baritone from the puny voice he'd had when they last talked last year. What really changed was his nervous tendency to slouch. Now, he walked with an unshakeable swagger and a golden smile that shaped his cheeks.

"It's nice to see you," Keith says with sincerity.

"Man, thanks so much. I haven't talked to you in a minute. I heard you're in my buddy's potions class?" That could be just about anyone, really. Most of the third year Gryffindors were in Keith's potions class and he told him so. "Just transferred! Lance Buchanan? Little mousy fella, doesn't talk a lot in class?" Keith almost crashes into a student running down the hall at top speed. "Whoa there buddy, you good?" Garrett holds onto his bicep (which is getting bigger, mind you, if Garrett squeezing in amazement at that muscle was anything to go by).

"Um, yeah," Keith nods and catches his bearings before they are walking again.

"Well," Garrett says before throwing a thumb over his shoulder, "I've gotta head to class. But next time you see Buchanan, you tell him I only said good things about him to you."

Pidge and Keith are supposed to approach this Lance Buchanan sometime after class anytime this week so he resigns himself to do it then, as a conversation starter if he will. But every time after class, Pidge is rushing over to her classes and so is Keith and, by the time they even get to the back of the class, the kid isn't even there anymore for God's sakes, having run off to his next class.

But they can't wait too long to talk to Lance. The next potion's quiz is coming up quickly and Keith is starting to get worried that if they don't help this kid soon, he'll fail and it will be all on him.

Pidge comes up with a plan.

"I have a master plan to catch this child," she says, leaning back in the library chair before an attendant comes around to push all four legs back on the ground and tell her that's improper, especially while she's wearing a skirt. Pidge looks tempted to give her the middle finger but just gives Keith this tortured look as she settles her legs uncomfortably under the chair. "So, _anyway_ , my plan."

"Your plan."

"My plan," she grins. "We talk to the teacher. Set up a date. That's the plan."

Keith throws a gel pen on his textbook where a plethora of sticky notes are covering an essay he cannot piece together. "That's the worst plan ever."

"And why's that?"

Keith huffs and swipes some hair out of his face (it sure is getting long). "She'll know," he whispers. Pidge begins to roll her eyes but Keith interrupts it midroll. "Listen! We can't have her knowing we didn't talk to him sooner. Then she'll think we're terrible students."

" _Nuhuh_ —"

"Yes, huh!"

Pidge sits straight up before leaning in close, conspiratorial almost, as she pushes her long bangs out of her face, back into her headband. Keith found it funny when she got that serious look on her face, where her eyes narrowed and her mouth drew into a tight line as her hands came together in her lap before she really got down to business. In the same whisper Keith gave her earlier, she says softly, "Understand me. Meet me in the middle here, Keith. It will make it so much easier if we just go to the source of our problems and ask her to set up a small meeting with us." Keith begins to screw his face up but she holds a hand up, firm in his silence. "Understand, _meet me in the middle,"_ and she's grinning because she knows she's being silly but he's seeing her side too.

"How about this," he says, leaning forward as well so their foreheads almost knock against one another. "We could catch him at breakfast?"

She sits up, nodding and bringing her hands together again with a smack. "I think you're onto something. But how do we know when he gets to breakfast?"

"I know a guy."

"What guy?"

"His friend. He talked to me in the halls the other day and told me Lance transferred to our class so he knows this guy well enough."

Pidge takes that. "You talk to him and we launch our sneak attack, okay?"

"Yes, ma'am."

They give each other hard looks, trying to be serious about this whole situation but burst into giggles loud enough for the attendant to reappear to tell them to be quiet. "You're disrupting the other patrons!" she says with a hiss, raising a well-manicured red nail to her lips, shushing them.

But they put their plan into action.

Keith gets ahold of Garrett next time he sees him in the halls. The guy is dressed rather casual, with his tie thrown hazardously over his shoulder and his cloak nowhere to be seen in this excruciatingly cold weather. There is a certain dress code maintained only by the students and less by the teachers so when he sees the yellow sweater instead of a standard white one, Keith gives him a strange look. "Uh, any reason for the different colored shirt?"

Garrett looks down at it as if he doesn't know what he's wearing himself before saying, "Oh, yeah, um, Lance likes this shirt and he's having a little dinner party so it felt right to wear it all day rather than change later."

"Sounds like fun," he responds while dodging other students hurrying to class. A silence develops between the two of them, something Keith could really do without. "What's it for?"

"The party?"

"Yeah."

Garrett grimaces, "I can't talk too much about it but it's a congratulations party. He went through some hard stuff recently and had a surgery _aandd_ I'm telling you way more than I need to."

Oh, but it was enough to have Keith pulling a frown, staring down at his textbooks as he absorbs this information that Lance, this student he's going to have to tutor for some duration of time is going through something rough. "You don't have to tell him this but I hope he feels better and whatever it bothering him doesn't bother him anymore."

Garrett gives him a heavy look before a twinkle lights in his eyes. "I'll make sure he hears that. That's real nice of you to say." They've reached what Keith supposes is Garrett's classroom—a defense against the dark arts classroom with zero chairs and bright lancet windows—and Garrett offers him a hand to shake, two strong grips meet, before Garrett is saying "It was nice talking to you, buddy."

Keith feels warm after talking to Garrett and he's walking to his next class before he realizes that he forgot something _really_ important.

He forgot to ask about Buchanan.

"Goddamnit, Keith," Pidge squeezes the bridge of her nose before almost choking Keith in the library but somehow finds the strength to refrain as seen the tenseness of her body. "You let him get away. Now, what are we gonna do?"

"Um _mm."_

"Useless! I tell you to do one thing. You're the worst croonie ever." Pidge throws her hands up. "Did you find out anything?"

" _Ummm."_

"Useless!" she repeats.

"I _mean_ , I found out stuff but it's invasive. He's having a party but we're obviously not invited."

Pidge absorbs the information with a tap of her finger on her chin. "I did hear a second year was having a party in my dorm." They share a look and hatch the final plan.

And then they decide together to crash the party.

Titled Operation: Crash a Party So Our Potions' Master Doesn't Realize We Haven't Talked to the New Kid of the Class, (Keith retitles it Operation: Crash a Party because Pidge's original title was kind of a mouthful) requires some materials if zero: fancier clothes and food, maybe a gift as condolences after they do what they do. They change in Keith's room, both into the more casual jeans and tee shirts before gathering things they could take with them into a satchel, going onto Phase Two of the mission.

Small cakes and punch and Pidge pens a small letter that reads elegantly:

_Lance Buchanan,_

_Nice to finally meet you! We're your tutors for potions class and we're so happy to meet you._

_Sorry for crashing your party,_

_Keith Shirogane & Pidge Holt _

_P.S. We study at 6pm in the library._

Much disputing went on about the letter as they moved onto Phase Three which was to run as quick to Slytherin house as physically possible without being caught by any adults who would surely tell them to slow down. The first argument was over the order of the names. "Why couldn't you put your name first?"

Pidge throws her hands up, "What does it even matter?"

"He'll see me and blame _me_ for breaking into his party when it was your idea."

"It was really your idea," she grumbles as they sharply turn a corner, apologizing to a first year for rounding on them so quickly as they part to make way for her before coming back to run side by side.

"What about alphabetical rules? Do those not matter anymore?

"Oh my god, it _doesn't matter._ Feel bad when he yells at us for crashing the party."

The next argument follows immediately after that argument as Pidge is trying to remember the code into the common rooms though it's hard, it appears because it changed recently and, under pressure, Pidge isn't the best at remembering anything.

"Wait, you said 'Sorry for crashing your party'? That's—Why?" he huffs once she opens the door, which launches them into Phase Four of the Operation which is to find the dorm.

"Keith, it absolutely doesn't matter anymore."

It doesn't but Keith can still complain, can't he?

Especially when they pass a room and he makes eyes with none other than Garrett in his mustard-yellow shirt laughing with a plate in his hand and a polaroid camera in his other. Keith, being brilliant, yells, "There he is!" and storms into the room to a small party scene and who he assumes is Buchanan looking utterly confused and then terrified as he is scurrying to pull his shirt down and hiding under the covers of an already rumbled bed.

"Keith! What're you doing here, man?" Garrett offers, tight-lipped and pained though ever so polite.

And Keith stops because he's frozen in the moment.

Pidge isn't, however, pushing them into Phase Five of the mission. "Hi, lovely party," she says and it is. The room has little corny balloons in yellow and blue and pink which are dazzling colors together along with so many food choices a girl's bureau (it's suddenly dawned on Keith that they are in a girl's Slytherin dorm room and none of the people in this room, exempting Pidge, are Slytherin nor girls so it's strange, you can imagine) while the two boys are sipping on sodas and taking pictures, it appeared.

"But you are?" Garrett narrows his eyes and begins walking between the bed (where Buchanan is) and the door.

"Pidge. Holt," she shakes hands with him. "Uh, and you know Keith here. We're actually here to see Lance Buchanan? We're his new potions tutors?" Pidge looks expectantly at Garrett to move but Garrett holds his ground.

"How'd you know he'd be here?" and he directs his steely gaze at Keith.

"From a little bird—"

"I brought monopoly—oh!" A girl comes in, long white hair consisting of extravagant ringlets comes in with a box of monopoly and more sweets but she stops immediately to put a suspicious smile on her face. "Hi, friends of Lance? I'm Allura. Oh, hi Pidge!"

"Hi, Allura. This is Keith. We wanted to stop by and give see Lance real quick. We're his new tutors."

Allura's face immediately sours as she poses the box and sweets on one hip and gives the two of them a cursory glance Keith quite honestly does not like at all as if she is seeing something on the underside of her shoe. But it is not unlike the look Garrett had given them once discovering their intentions and he's starting to think that interrupting whatever is going on what _really_ super private and he's made a _really_ big mistake by crashing this particular party. "That probably wasn't the best idea of yours," she says, stating exactly what Keith is thinking as the air in the room is clearly tense and he can hear Buchanan heaving slightly on the bed, clutching his hair while Garrett pats his back lovingly, trying to bring him back down.

Allura's eyes slip down to what's in Pidge's hand and gestures towards it. "Um, apologies. And a gift. We didn't mean to interrupt anything serious."

Allura takes it as Buchanan's voice becomes known as he whispers to Garrett, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," and Garrett simply sits there with a hyperventilating boy in his lap. Keith sends him a wayward look full of remorse and apologies as Buchanan promptly ruins Garrett's nice shirt but Allura is shooing them out.

The door slams in their faces and they look at each other, shrug, and Pidge says, "That definitely could have gone better."

"We're jerks."

Pidge guides him out of the common room and starts walking him to his dorms. "No, no, we...are. Big time. The biggest jerks. That was obviously serious stuff and we ruined a private moment."

"And made a guy have a panic attack."

"And did that."

They walk solemnly back to Keith's dormitory where he brings them into the common room and they look at one another and realize that, yeah, Operation: Crash a Party was successful but at what cost?

They find out the next day when they get to class and find Buchanan, a guy Keith has never had the fortune of seeing closely before, waiting for them at their desk. He quietly writes in a small book and pushes a small strand of hair behind his ears while Keith looks at him from afar. He's got this long hair down to his shoulders that he ties back in a loose bun but doesn't do much for his baby hairs that curl out of the bun and in front of his face. When Keith gets in front of him with a sorry ready to go on his lips, Keith sees the blue of his eyes against the prettiest brown skin ever already awash with fresh tears that he wipes away before standing up abruptly with all his things at his side.

He stutters and gives Keith a handshake but it's loose as Buchanan looks like he's ready to vomit everywhere. "I'm Lance. I read your letter and got your gift. Thank you—"

"Pidge picked it out," Keith says with the softest smile he can muster.

But Lance looks at his feet as if taken aback by Keith's kindness and he frowns. "Thank you." He's barely audible before he coughs, trying to resurrect his previous confidence. "I can meet you in the library later today if you're there." He swipes all his things off the desk and he walks away in long strides without hearing Keith's response and Keith cannot help but think he's massively fucked this up.

He curses for the first time in a letter to Takashi during lunch.

_Takashi,_

_I made the biggest mistake. Biggest one. I'm such an ass._

_Keith._

Keith doesn't try to explain and wouldn't because it would hurt too much but he thinks he's made himself clear in what he means.

Takashi sends him a letter back, just as simple as the one Keith wrote him:

_Fix it, then._

_Takashi._

When dinner rolls around, Pidge takes her seat next to him and feasts silently on some beans and rice she scavenged at the other end of the table. They hadn't spoken much all day because the air was heavy with their mistake but he does tell her how empty of a look Garrett had given him when he had left her and found himself next to Garrett, the boy himself, towering over Keith and shaking his head as he walked swiftly by. Keith had tried to share his sympathy and possibly see if there was any way he could make it up to anyone yet he knew, too, that the most he could do right now is ride the wave of anger they gave him.

Pidge breaks the silence towards the end of dinner when Keith is finishing up a conversation with the Hufflepuff seeker who's discussing a skirmish match they'd recently had. Her golden curls makes an almost halo around her head as she smiles under the candlelight and she's giving Keith pointers in how to really get that position, good ones too that he's never heard before (the Gryffindor seeker stopped giving him advice a long time ago when he started to feel threatened by the possibility of Keith taking his spot).

Pidge pats his shoulder, Keith turns to ask her the question of what but she beats him to the punch, throwing her chin at Allura, who is giving them a death glare from across the room. "I think she wants to talk to us."

Keith turns back to the seeker. "Thank you for the advice," he gets a hug in return and a chuckle. "I really have to go handle something but I'd love to talk to you sometime later, whenever you're free after a skirmish maybe?" The girl says yes and walks away with a pep in her step before he's looking at Pidge, "What?"

She gets a look sometimes whenever he talks to anyone, mostly people who seem to talk to him for "too long" or squeeze his arm or hug him for an "inordinate amount of time" and he's thought the girl was nice! She hadn't touched him for long and was talking about sports stuff. But Pidge smirks almost, "I didn't mean to interrupt your flirting session but Allura is coming 'round to talk to us."

"We weren't flirting," he whispers because others around the table seem interested in their conversation which isn't even all that interesting, to begin with. "We were just, y'know."

"Nope," she grins, "I don't know."

He rolls his eyes before stabbing the food on his plate with a fork with some force. "We were just talking."

"She sure was giggling a lot."

"Jealous?"

Allura sits opposite them, already looking angry before she even opens her mouth. But that's fair, Keith reasons, because the two of them had done a terribly horrible thing yesterday that deserved punishment. However she wanted to punish them was her decision, one because Buchanan didn't seem at all in love with the idea of even staying in the same room as the two of them whereas Allura was all for it, with hands clenched and teeth bared and, two, because Keith needed this punishment. Sitting around all day, trying to formulate a written apology wasn't fun nor was the concept of saying sorry if it reminded Buchanan exactly of what happened.

Keith wants whatever is given to him. He knows he deserves it.

Allura doesn't say hello to them as she starts in quickly, "I know Garrett didn't want to talk to either of you so I took the liberty of doing this myself but I must ask that at your study session tonight you keep it strictly about studying, nothing else. Lance doesn't want to hear it. He doesn't need a repeat."

Pidge tries to interject, "We're really sorry—"

But Allura shakes her head and looks away, tears already forming angrily in her eyes. "What you did wasn't nice. And he's gone through a lot recently so please don't do anything like that again."

She departs but not before turning back around and she has pulled something out of the breast pocket of her cloak, placed it on the table. It's a small box of polaroid camera film. "Give that to him and he'll be happy." Her voice sounds soggy with anger as she wipes her nose. "Don't fuck it up."

They try not to.

Keith gets to the library at exactly the time he said he should but Buchanan is already in a little window seat with his books spread all around him at his feet while he looks out the window, down at the greenhouse through the viewfinder of a camera. Keith tries not to startle him and sets his books down on the table near Buchanan, "Uh, hey," which startles him enough to almost drop the camera. "Sorry! Didn't mean to make you do that," and Keith rubs the back of his neck because this already started wrong.

"It's fine."

Keith nods and opens his satchel, Takashi's old one that he passed down to Keith as a Christmas gift this year. "So, Pidge will be here a bit later. She had to grab her notes."

The library is, of course, set up into short aisles with tables and workspaces separating them and they are in between two of Keith's favorite aisles: at 578 to 586 which covers the natural history of organisms to plants, but specifically Cryptogamia, the study of seedless plants which happened to be Keith's favorites. Why they picked this place? Keith likes to open books occasionally to survey the illustrations but also because it was a big help when they were trying to figure out plants for certain potions.

Most of all, however, this was Takashi and Matt's old study corner. If anything, old habits die hard and after the two of the graduated, it was difficult to reestablish a new study corner and Pidge was adamant they shouldn't (Keith has inferred it has something to do with this girl, Samantha, walking down this aisles on Tuesdays towards the end of their sessions right before an herbology project the seventh years present every Friday. Nails bitten down and a bob cut, Samantha waves at them before striking a conversation with Pidge who she knows from bumping into her at the local bookstore. Somehow, Pidge can stand the conversations for the sake of _maybe_ getting a date though the likelihood of a date with a seventh year when you're fourteen is -1000%). Plus, they have a great view, something Pidge will doodle in her notebook when she gets bored with a paper and look down at the twittering birds that make nests on the windowsill.

They had old memories in this corner. Times when Takashi had cried because he failed a quiz but then cried a week later because he passed the test somehow or when Matt had somehow gotten a girl to spend a tense study night with the four of them as he cajoled in his typical fashion, flirting up a storm that Keith eventually found utterly unbearable and had to leave for the day. Matt would apologize to him for that one but Keith was busy laughing because his pick-up lines were atrocious.

Buchanan looks good in this corner with his feet up on the window seat and a journal landed out on his lap and Keith thinks to tell him so. "You comfortable up there?" He gets a reluctant nod, no eye contact, in return and he coughs. "You'd make a nice picture."

With that, Keith hurries to look down at his notes because what he's said was risky business, he knows that, but it was the truth. The early moonlight is hitting Buchanan just right so that when he looked up, his blue eyes almost glow against the pink setting sun. But it's beside the point and Buchanan leaves his place to take a seat across from Keith, the smallest of grins on his face.

"Thank you. For the comment."

Keith nods.

Pidge joins them five minutes late with her hands full of textbooks and notes and supplies. On top of her little stack is the box of film. "This is for you," she says as she sets the box in front of Buchanan. "I never got to really introduce myself. I'm Katie Holt but friends call me Pidge."

Buchanan gives her a weary look and looks at Keith like he's suddenly a lifeline. Keith furrows his eyebrows at that but says nothing as Buchanan waves a hand. "Hi. You guys can call me Lance." He sets back to work on homework immediately after that.

After the terse session where Buchanan ended the meeting saying he'd love to do this again—"it was a lot of help"—Keith writes a final letter to Takashi for the day.

_I'm still fixing it but I think things are looking up._

_Keith._

#### ☾

When Buchanan starts his final exam to test out of year three potions' class, Keith is more anxious than anyone, even Buchanan who tells him at their final study session that it's no big deal. "I've studied and you guys were a big help." He shares with them a rare smile. Keith thinks he wishes he were a photography buff like he's discovered Buchanan is because then he could capture his upturned lips and the crinkle of the corner of his left eye as he moves a strand out of hair out the way like he always does when something satisfies him and Keith could keep it close at hand to remember he did that, _he did that._ The softness that follows the smile is like silk on his skin as Buchanan talks more after smiling, asking more questions and laughing at Pidge's quips.

It's nice.

He still worries.

Buchanan _had_ studied and he wrote excellent essays explaining the fundamentals of certain ingredients in potions, practiced fantastic lab safety, remembered every motion needed to create beautiful concoctions all thanks mostly to his own brain and very little to the help Pidge and Keith offered to him. The kid was smart and likely didn't need them to tutor him but he also had a tendency to lose himself in questions and never get things done until they were answered. That, and he has terrible self-confidence, something Keith could never blame him for.

Every time he got a question wrong in their presence, he would bury his head in his hands and look like he was on the verge of tears. First they contributed it to the fact that Pidge and Keith hadn't met him under the best of circumstances, crashing his very private party and causing a panic attack; something they never brought up again but Keith couldn't stop thinking about it, especially when Buchanan would come to the sessions with red cheeks and bloodshot eyes and Garrett close at hand, whispering something reassuring in his ear before handing him a chocolate bar, as he shot Pidge and Keith nasty looks (Keith couldn't ever get a hold of Garrett to properly apologize to _him_ for betraying his trust). He'd plop down in his seat, say hello, and bury his nose in his textbook. Those were the moments Keith was the most concerned.

But, obviously, Buchanan showed up upset enough times that they knew it couldn't be them, realistically.

They didn't ask, he didn't tell.

Day of the exam, he has Garrett, however. Keith started a month into studying and realizing that Buchanan didn't _hate_ them that he would meet him at the door every day of class just to say hey since he sat by himself oftentimes. Buchanan seemed to appreciate that most days by starting up small talk and never shooing him away like Keith expected. Today is different, Garrett sending him less of a glare and more of a plea.

"Come talk to me immediately after your exam, okay?" Buchanan nods as he takes a seat and Garrett turns to Keith. "Would you make sure he gets to the dining hall after his exam?"

Keith's eyes go wide. This is the first time in a long time that Garrett has willingly spoken to him. Granted, he's not even facing him because he's digging through his bag for something to give to Buchanan but Keith takes it. "Yes."

Garrett claps him on the back, "Thanks, man." He leaves.

The test starts and it isn't hard except that Keith's thoughts are completely consumed by Buchanan and the small sniffles he can hear in the back of the room obviously coming from him. Keith knows the difference between every type of root they've learned this year, how the chemistries react to one another, and what he can get if he messes up but he can only worry if _Buchanan_ remembers that with a handkerchief held up to his weeping eyes as he's obviously cut up about something.

Buchanan finishes the test before Keith and he turns it in but he doesn't leave the classroom like he's permitted to do. He's either waiting for Keith to walk with him or he's...god knows what. All Keith knows is he finishes it and finds Buchanan with his head down, rubbing at his eyes like he'd rather take them out of their sockets.

"Come on," Keith says.

Pidge already left. Had another test to handle but gave her condolences to Buchanan, saying astutely, "I'm sorry." Moral of the story is he had to walk by himself with Buchanan.

Buchanan is slow to rise and Keith almost has it in his mind to pick him up himself and carry him to the dining hall but that would be demeaning, he thinks, and they end up making it there at an even faster pace than expected because Buchanan is nearly running through the halls, heaving.

They find Garrett with ease. "Hey, Lance," he says when Buchanan puts his face in Garrett's chest. Garrett shares a look with Keith. "Thank you. Again."

"No problem." He sets Buchanan's things down on a table. "Anything I can do for you?"

Garrett licks his lips and thinks about it. "Do you think you could sit with us? This might take a group effort. He hasn't eaten much today and I don't want to leave him alone, y'know?"

"I'm right here," Buchanan murmurs between sniffles.

Garrett looks down at him, "You decided to skip out on meals so I get to talk shit all I want." Buchanan huffs but a smile washes over his face that Garrett returns with ease. Pursing his lips, Keith undoubtedly wishes he had the magic to do that for Buchanan this whole time. "Think you could sit him down while I get some food?" The attention is back on Keith.

"Oh, yes. Of course."

Buchanan is handed off like a baby, from one friend to another, and Keith surveys the room for the quietest corner he can find which ends up being at the Ravenclaw's end. No longer is Buchanan crying from whatever that's been bothering him today so they shuffle over together, almost awkwardly, while they wait for Garrett to return yet Keith watches him closely. He hadn't noticed the pallor of Buchanan's cheeks until now, contributing that to the tear streaks, but simply adding the slouch of Buchanan's body like he doesn't have the energy to carry his body upright and the snotty hiccups that echo through him like he's hollow, Keith grows concerned.

"You don't need to look at me like that, y'know?" Buchanan twiddles his thumbs.

"I don't know."

"You do know. You're doing it." His voice is frail.

"No."

They sit in silence.

Garrett appears with a plate of food full of sweet things: powdered almonds, apple slices, toast with chocolate spread on it, along with a glass of orange juice and another with water. It's enough to perk Buchanan up and Garrett sits opposite them as he watches Buchanan inspect food and eat it slowly. "Don't play with it. You've got to eat whether you want to or not."

Buchanan's eyes droop. "I'm not all that hungry, Hunk."

Garrett hums, "I've heard that excuse before." Buchanan blushes under the scrutiny and returns to his food.

Truly, there is something mesmerizing about how Lance eats his food with the intensity of a scientist as he looks at each food bit by bit and almost questions the quality of it's maker before stuffing it in his mouth to slowly but surely chew it like his jaw doesn't work fast enough to chew more than two rotations a minute. He peels things, tears them apart, places them on his plate in a truly beautiful display that causes Keith to frown because Buchanan's belly grumbles and, yet, he's eaten barely anything off that golden plate.

"I'm done," he says, mouth muffled by food while he pushes the plate away. Food shredded up on his plate and downed liquids, he almost looks proud of himself.

Garrett's steely expression says otherwise. "Finish it."

Buchanan doesn't look at Garrett, the first indicator that this discussion has happened before. His cheeks are stuffed like a squirrel with nuts and Keith can't understand how he's enduring that, the grumbling stomach with the soggy food in his mouth and crumbs under his long fingernails from playing with his food. But he can't say anything because this is private.

Garrett pushes the plate back towards him and that's the end of that conversation.

Keith gets a letter later on the train home.

_Keith Kogane,_

_Thank you for the other week when I wasn't feeling well after my exam and thank you so much for tutoring me. Please pass the latter part of that message on to Pidge because I am eternally grateful to the both of you; you've been too kind._

_I hope you have a lovely summer and we would possibly continue studying together. I like our little alcove, it's a lovely place. The starlings are always nesting there, I don't know if you know, but I get lots of pretty pictures of them._

_Also, please call me Lance. Calling me Buchanan is weird and all my friends call me Lance._

_Lance Buchanan_

Left in the envelope is a picture of a starling sitting outside a window on a frosty day. On the inside, Keith can see the view of a bookshelf filled to the brim with books and striped socks on the window seat he saw every day after dinner. Written at the bottom of the instant film is a note that reads, "Common sighting, 2/04/94" in loopy letters that presumably belong to Lance.

 _Lance_ , Keith thinks. _What a nice ring to it._ He didn't think they could be friends.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Here to tell you that I posted this on my patreon first like two months ago so [ go check that out](https://www.patreon.com/poetjasmi) and I'm on [ twitter](https://twitter.com/poetjasmi).
> 
> Please leave a comment !! I need validation!


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